Tesla Syndrome...

[Joerg]

On 8/22/23 7:17 AM, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 05:12:36 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid
wrote:

[...]

Phones make me mad too,
have to dump a perfectly working 2G Nokia phone because 2G is phased out..
But wait.. buy a 4G, oh no, they just moved to 5G now...
The old Nokia has real buttons.. now all touch screens and way bigger...
I found an other Nokia (225 -4G) with buttons that now does the job, but its still bigger and software is not as good as the old one.

Rumor is that some old and young people are going back to flip phones.

I met some of them lately.

I was a longterm hold-out with ye olde candy bar phone, a Nokia 2115i.
Was waiting for a shuttle near an airport in Arizona. Flight was going
to be delayed so I called my client about it. A guy next to me grew
irate over his smart phone. No connection. I asked him if he wanted to
use mine to make a call. \"Thanks, man, that really helps me right now!\"

Then I got to that client and there was a meeting with lots of biz
folks, venture capitalists in their $1000 suits. The one next to me
unfolded his stuff on the conference table and there was a fancy smart
phone _plus_ a Nokia 2115i, same candy bar phone as mine. \"So you always
carry both?\" ... \"Oh yeah, because in a pinch the Nokia is the only one
making the connection\".

The best thing about the big LCD on my phone is the HP calculator
clone, and using the phone as a camera. The touch screen function is
flakey.

Same here, mostly using RpnCalc and the camera. Lately also the Raley\'s
grocery shopping app because without it you easily pay double for a lot
of stuff. \"Digitally activated\" coupons, quite silly but else no dice
anymore.

I also have a Xiaomi smart phone with touch screen and LCD display, it works OK
but I see the new ones for 5G have AMOLED displays ...
Does AMOLED burn in like OLEDs?

I mean you have to fork out hundreds of dollars every time the system is updated.. 2G 3G 4G now 5G, 6G when>>???
All to make a phone call????

Wait until Black Friday, then you can get an entry level Samsung for
$100-200.

Same for TV systems, HD, ultra HD...
Internet speed, fiber...
But has the content improved?

Instant access to data sheets and app notes and parts pricing are
great. We used to have a library with hundreds of data books. We
filled a dumpster when we moved.

We should also see another core benefit: The Internet has enabled me to
work remotely more than ever. Right now to 100%. Of course, that is not
so good for airlines, hotels and restaurants.

For the cost of roughly $1k/year I can easily save $10k/year. I\'d call
that a good return on investment.

I kept a few classics.

I am still debating when and how many more to cut loose. I\'ve shrunk it
to less than half already.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 13:33:51 -0700, Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com>
wrote:

On 8/21/23 6:37 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 21 Aug 2023 17:15:56 -0700 (PDT), Flyguy
soar2morrow@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Monday, August 21, 2023 at 3:51:53?PM UTC-7, Ricky wrote:
On Monday, August 21, 2023 at 4:26:35?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
Pretty good rant:

https://dnyuz.com/2023/08/21/tesla-syndrome-explains-why-tech-is-making-us-miserable/


My wife\'s Honda Fit is great. If you want to change the hvac settings,
you grab a knob and turn it. You don\'t even have to take your eyes off
the road.


I had my first glimpse at nonsensical tech in highschool. The richer
kids had Philips and later Sony portable cassette players. They\'d run
around campus like zombies, sunken into their tunes. If you wanted to
talk to one you had to tap their shoulders and they had to strip back
the headphones. Then ... TADAAAH ... a \"Talk-Through\" button was added.
Suddenly kids could communicate again using their mouths. What a concept!

From a marketing perspective this was brilliant though. First you take
a resource given by nature away. Then, for a nice chunk of money, you
offer to put it back. Ka-ching. Of course, now the act of listening
would also begin to consume batteries ... double ka-ching.


How do you capture the carbon released?

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

Do you mean by the coal-fired power plants that recharge Tesla\'s?


Touché!


We feed it to our plants.


Even better, use it to carbonate beer. So if we\'d all drink a lot more
beer we can save the universe

\"You don\'t buy beer, you rent it.\"

 

[Sylvia Else]

On 22-Aug-23 6:26 am, John Larkin wrote:

Pretty good rant:

https://dnyuz.com/2023/08/21/tesla-syndrome-explains-why-tech-is-making-us-miserable/


My wife\'s Honda Fit is great. If you want to change the hvac settings,
you grab a knob and turn it. You don\'t even have to take your eyes off
the road.

A car I had to hire a few days ago had the A/C control on a touch
screen. Just as well I had a passenger, because there\'s no way I could
safely have adjusted it while driving.

On another note about inappropriately designed technology, I was using
on-line check-in for a flight (what does it even mean to check-in
online?). They said they\'d send the boarding pass to my phone. But what
they emailed was a link to a page that could be retrieved to show the
boarding pass. So it wasn\'t on the phone.

I don\'t have broadband access on my phone - I have almost no need for
such a thing, and see no reason to pay for it. At check-in time, the
airport\'s free WiFi was down. So I had no access to the boarding pass.

A work-around was found, but I can imagine chaos ensuing if a major
mobile phone telco\'s network went down, and a large proportion of
passengers could not access their boarding passes. And it seems
completely unnecessary. All they needed to do was embed the boarding
pass in the email.

I\'ve pointed this out on their Facebook page. I\'m sure they\'ll do
nothing about it.

Sylvia.

 

[Don Y]

On 8/22/2023 6:03 PM, Sylvia Else wrote:

A car I had to hire a few days ago had the A/C control on a touch screen. Just
as well I had a passenger, because there\'s no way I could safely have adjusted
it while driving.

Be like trying to adjust the L-R balance on the sound system...

On another note about inappropriately designed technology, I was using on-line
check-in for a flight (what does it even mean to check-in online?). They said
they\'d send the boarding pass to my phone. But what they emailed was a link to
a page that could be retrieved to show the boarding pass. So it wasn\'t on the
phone.

I don\'t have broadband access on my phone - I have almost no need for such a
thing, and see no reason to pay for it.

Imagine what it\'s like telling a business that you can\'t receive SMS?
\"Then, how are we going to notify you?\"
\"You\'ve got my phone number. Can\'t you PHONE ME???\"

At check-in time, the airport\'s free
WiFi was down. So I had no access to the boarding pass.

Ooops!

A work-around was found, but I can imagine chaos ensuing if a major mobile
phone telco\'s network went down, and a large proportion of passengers could not
access their boarding passes. And it seems completely unnecessary. All they
needed to do was embed the boarding pass in the email.

I\'ve pointed this out on their Facebook page. I\'m sure they\'ll do nothing about
it.

Newer appliances now have WiFi connectivity. But, not *directly* to
your local client... rather, to a remote site (via wireless router
that YOU maintain and *your* ISP) which you then contact using your
phone/PC/whatever.

The value of the remote website? Ah... so you can talk to *it*
regardless of where you are located! Otherwise, you couldn\'t
turn your oven on if you were in another state! (WTF???)

\"Imagine the chaos ensuing if\" such a site was hacked and
told to turn on EVERYONE\'s oven???

Ditto your refrigerator, household thermostate, security
camera(s), doorbell, irrigation system, etc.

Do all/any of these REQUIRE that \"third party\" for their
proper operation? As they all require an *app*, can\'t
that app have a network discovery process built in
to eliminate the need for the other agency??

[It would be interesting to be called as an expert witness in a
class action lawsuit representing folks who incurred damages
from ovens that were remotely turned on by such a hack!
\"No, Mr Lawyer, there is no *need* for the remote proxy
that was the source of the hack\"]

 

[Ricky]

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 9:03:48 PM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 22-Aug-23 6:26 am, John Larkin wrote:

Pretty good rant:

https://dnyuz.com/2023/08/21/tesla-syndrome-explains-why-tech-is-making-us-miserable/


My wife\'s Honda Fit is great. If you want to change the hvac settings,
you grab a knob and turn it. You don\'t even have to take your eyes off
the road.

A car I had to hire a few days ago had the A/C control on a touch
screen. Just as well I had a passenger, because there\'s no way I could
safely have adjusted it while driving.

On another note about inappropriately designed technology, I was using
on-line check-in for a flight (what does it even mean to check-in
online?). They said they\'d send the boarding pass to my phone. But what
they emailed was a link to a page that could be retrieved to show the
boarding pass. So it wasn\'t on the phone.

I don\'t have broadband access on my phone - I have almost no need for
such a thing, and see no reason to pay for it. At check-in time, the
airport\'s free WiFi was down. So I had no access to the boarding pass.

I have no idea what you mean by \"broadband access\". Most airports have Wifi, but if that\'s down, you still have one way to get a boarding pass. Go to the kiosk the airlines have specifically to get boarding passes.

I\'m not a fan of the phone boarding pass. With Spirit you use their app, and it downloads to the phone. No email is involved. You do need Internet connectivity, but you can do it from home before you leave. What I don\'t like about it, is that when I bring up the app and show the boarding pass, I only have so much time before it times out and goes away, and I have to bring up the app again. Silly feature.

A work-around was found, but I can imagine chaos ensuing if a major
mobile phone telco\'s network went down, and a large proportion of
passengers could not access their boarding passes. And it seems
completely unnecessary. All they needed to do was embed the boarding
pass in the email.

Or, you can get a paper boarding pass when the electronic one fails.

I\'ve pointed this out on their Facebook page. I\'m sure they\'ll do
nothing about it.

Their \"facebook page\"??? No, that\'s never going to get any attention.

It\'s not like airlines listen to their millions of customers. They don\'t have time for that.

--

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Sylvia Else]

On 23-Aug-23 12:28 pm, Ricky wrote:

> Or, you can get a paper boarding pass when the electronic one fails.

Yes, there are solutions, but if a large number of passengers suddenly
need something that most never need, it\'s unlikely that the airline will
be able to cope without creating significant delays. Sometimes that is
unavoidable, but in this case it could easily be avoided.

I\'ve pointed this out on their Facebook page. I\'m sure they\'ll do
nothing about it.

Their \"facebook page\"??? No, that\'s never going to get any
attention.

It\'s not like airlines listen to their millions of customers. They
don\'t have time for that.

It\'s more about there existing a public record of that fact that they\'ve
been averted to the problem. If and when it hits the fan, they cannot
claim it was an issue that was never foreseen.

Sylvia

 

[Ricky]

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 10:51:14 PM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 23-Aug-23 12:28 pm, Ricky wrote:

Or, you can get a paper boarding pass when the electronic one fails.
Yes, there are solutions, but if a large number of passengers suddenly
need something that most never need, it\'s unlikely that the airline will
be able to cope without creating significant delays. Sometimes that is
unavoidable, but in this case it could easily be avoided.

I hate to break it to you, but the ticket kiosks are seldom stressed and the phone boarding passes are not used that frequently... at least not at Spirit.

I\'ve pointed this out on their Facebook page. I\'m sure they\'ll do
nothing about it.

Their \"facebook page\"??? No, that\'s never going to get any
attention.

It\'s not like airlines listen to their millions of customers. They
don\'t have time for that.

It\'s more about there existing a public record of that fact that they\'ve
been averted to the problem. If and when it hits the fan, they cannot
claim it was an issue that was never foreseen.

LOL! If you think a Facebook post is \"official notice\" of anything, you need to rethink that.

Also, shit will never hit the fan on this issue. There is no shit and there is no fan. Airlines get away with murder anyway.

--

Rick C.

-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Sylvia Else]

On 23-Aug-23 1:32 pm, Ricky wrote:

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 10:51:14 PM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 23-Aug-23 12:28 pm, Ricky wrote:

Or, you can get a paper boarding pass when the electronic one fails.
Yes, there are solutions, but if a large number of passengers suddenly
need something that most never need, it\'s unlikely that the airline will
be able to cope without creating significant delays. Sometimes that is
unavoidable, but in this case it could easily be avoided.

I hate to break it to you, but the ticket kiosks are seldom stressed and the phone boarding passes are not used that frequently... at least not at Spirit.

Perhaps not where you live. On the flight in question, almost everyone
was using a phone boarding pass. The problem would be compounded if
people expected to do so, only to discover the moment before that it
wasn\'t going to work.

Sylvia.

 

[Ricky]

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 11:55:00 PM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 23-Aug-23 1:32 pm, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 10:51:14 PM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 23-Aug-23 12:28 pm, Ricky wrote:

Or, you can get a paper boarding pass when the electronic one fails.
Yes, there are solutions, but if a large number of passengers suddenly
need something that most never need, it\'s unlikely that the airline will
be able to cope without creating significant delays. Sometimes that is
unavoidable, but in this case it could easily be avoided.

I hate to break it to you, but the ticket kiosks are seldom stressed and the phone boarding passes are not used that frequently... at least not at Spirit.
Perhaps not where you live. On the flight in question, almost everyone
was using a phone boarding pass. The problem would be compounded if
people expected to do so, only to discover the moment before that it
wasn\'t going to work.

All the modern inconveniences!

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Fred Bloggs]

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 1:33:50 PM UTC-4, Flyguy wrote:

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 7:47:31 AM UTC-7, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 12:17:34 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 05:12:36 GMT, Jan Panteltje <al...@comet.invalid> wrote:
On a sunny day (Mon, 21 Aug 2023 13:26:23 -0700) it happened John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in <5th7eipmc8nacnjbc....@4ax.com>:
snip
But has the content improved?

Instant access to data sheets and app notes and parts pricing are great. We used to have a library with hundreds of data books. We filled a dumpster when we moved.
In that case the content stayed pretty much the same, thought I did notice that TI data sheets got longer, and instead of leaving out embarrassing information they buried it on page 45 of a 55 page data sheet.
I kept a few classics.
Reaching out and grabbing the book is faster than pulling the data off the web.
Hey Bozo, when was the last time that you did that, a decade ago? Besides, pulling out an out-of-date databook is worse than having nothing. Most of the rest of us have highspeed internet - finding a particular databook in a room of them is FAR SLOWER than just downloading the latest dataSHEET.

Quite a bit of the datasheet archive is outdated, as in really old, stuff. But most of it is still accurate information.

Finding reliable selector guides is the biggest challenge of finding new parts.

Persuading the authors to provide better data is a different problem.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/big-myth-9781635573572/

does demonstrate how some people do work hard to provide easy access to misleading data, and we do need some kind of mechanism to discourage people from lying to us.

In the US the rich and powerful would resent that.
More libtard NONSENSE!


--
Bozo Bill Slowman, Sydney

 

[Fred Bloggs]

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 9:03:48 PM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 22-Aug-23 6:26 am, John Larkin wrote:

Pretty good rant:

https://dnyuz.com/2023/08/21/tesla-syndrome-explains-why-tech-is-making-us-miserable/


My wife\'s Honda Fit is great. If you want to change the hvac settings,
you grab a knob and turn it. You don\'t even have to take your eyes off
the road.

A car I had to hire a few days ago had the A/C control on a touch
screen. Just as well I had a passenger, because there\'s no way I could
safely have adjusted it while driving.

Most people familiarize themselves with the controls on an unfamiliar car BEFORE they drive off.

On another note about inappropriately designed technology, I was using
on-line check-in for a flight (what does it even mean to check-in
online?). They said they\'d send the boarding pass to my phone. But what
they emailed was a link to a page that could be retrieved to show the
boarding pass. So it wasn\'t on the phone.

I don\'t have broadband access on my phone - I have almost no need for
such a thing, and see no reason to pay for it. At check-in time, the
airport\'s free WiFi was down. So I had no access to the boarding pass.

Nest time print out a backup of the pass to take with you.

A work-around was found, but I can imagine chaos ensuing if a major
mobile phone telco\'s network went down, and a large proportion of
passengers could not access their boarding passes. And it seems
completely unnecessary. All they needed to do was embed the boarding
pass in the email.

I\'ve pointed this out on their Facebook page. I\'m sure they\'ll do
nothing about it.


Sylvia.

 

[Sylvia Else]

On 23-Aug-23 10:01 pm, Fred Bloggs wrote:

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 9:03:48 PM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 22-Aug-23 6:26 am, John Larkin wrote:

Pretty good rant:

https://dnyuz.com/2023/08/21/tesla-syndrome-explains-why-tech-is-making-us-miserable/


My wife\'s Honda Fit is great. If you want to change the hvac settings,
you grab a knob and turn it. You don\'t even have to take your eyes off
the road.

A car I had to hire a few days ago had the A/C control on a touch
screen. Just as well I had a passenger, because there\'s no way I could
safely have adjusted it while driving.

Most people familiarize themselves with the controls on an unfamiliar car BEFORE they drive off.

That\'s not the issue. You have to look at a touch screen to use it.

On another note about inappropriately designed technology, I was using
on-line check-in for a flight (what does it even mean to check-in
online?). They said they\'d send the boarding pass to my phone. But what
they emailed was a link to a page that could be retrieved to show the
boarding pass. So it wasn\'t on the phone.

I don\'t have broadband access on my phone - I have almost no need for
such a thing, and see no reason to pay for it. At check-in time, the
airport\'s free WiFi was down. So I had no access to the boarding pass.

Nest time print out a backup of the pass to take with you.

Funny how I thought of that before the flight out, but my printer was
too heavy to take with me on the trip to print out the one for the
flight back.

Sylvia.

 

[Don Y]

On 8/23/2023 5:37 AM, Sylvia Else wrote:
> That\'s not the issue. You have to look at a touch screen to use it.

No, that\'s not true -- if the content is well designed.

When the \"audio\" screen is being displayed (selected by pressing a
physical button), I know that touching the upper left corner will
pull up the \"audio sources\" screen. I know that \"Bluetooth\"
occupies the top left (of 2 rows of 4 icons). And, that directly
below it is the \"USB\" icon. Because I *deliberately* arranged
them thusly (the AM, FM, Disk, CD, etc. other selections aren\'t
of use to me so delegate them to the far reaches of the screen).

I could similarly select \"BT\" or \"USB\" using the on-steeringwheel
buttons... but, that would require me to glance down at another
screen between the tach and speedo -- so, the touchscreen is
the more efficient, least distracting option.

When SWMBO drives, the audio sources screen has a different layout
that favors HER typical choices (Disk and FM). With 6 radio presets
on the radio screen, she can similarly pick the one she wants
because it\'s always WHERE SHE PUT IT.

OTOH, if she wanted to boost the treble response, she\'d likely
have to pull over and figure out how to *get* to that screen,
then how to alter the treble setting (vs. bass).

And, if she wanted to reconfigure the navigation system
to favor faster routes (instead of SHORTER), she\'d definitely
have to pull over as the car wouldn\'t let her access a setting
that \"deep\" in the user interface while driving.

Touchscreens work when they are uncluttered, focused (in purpose)
and large enough that controls need not be accessed with the
tip of a pen. They fail, miserably, when some dolt decides to
cram lots of stuff on the screen and make the active areas for
each control too small -- a common problem with web pages.

Your problem/excuse is the foreign-ness of the particular
vehicle. Had you driven it regularly, I suspect you would
instinctively know how to access the controls.

[It seldom rains, here. The front and rear wiper/washer controls
are on a stick mounted on the steering column. Sorting out
how to turn on the FRONT wipers among their various settings
(off/intermittent/low/med/fast/wipe-once) is always a guessing
game. Because its impossible to read the legend while driving.
Instead, you tweek it and see what happens. If the wipers
wipe once and never again, then you\'ve obviously activated
the wipe-once control; try again. If they wipe and then sit
for many seconds and you KNOW you\'ve not activated the wipe-once,
then you\'ve obviously activated the intermittent setting; if
this is what you want, then find something that seems like it
adjusts the \"wipe period\". Etc. Back wiper? If the front
wiper engages, then you\'ve picked the wrong control; try again!]

Most settings in a car are convenience related. The safety related
issues are usually automatic. E.g., tap the brake and the cruise
control will disengage. The airbags will deploy regardless of
your explicit actions. etc.

If you don\'t like the way the stereo\'s volume adjust based on
travel speed, manually tweek it -- or turn it off.

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 05:01:33 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 9:03:48?PM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 22-Aug-23 6:26 am, John Larkin wrote:

Pretty good rant:

https://dnyuz.com/2023/08/21/tesla-syndrome-explains-why-tech-is-making-us-miserable/


My wife\'s Honda Fit is great. If you want to change the hvac settings,
you grab a knob and turn it. You don\'t even have to take your eyes off
the road.

A car I had to hire a few days ago had the A/C control on a touch
screen. Just as well I had a passenger, because there\'s no way I could
safely have adjusted it while driving.

Most people familiarize themselves with the controls on an unfamiliar car BEFORE they drive off.

That would have to be a week-long online training course, with road
test.

My Audi has all incrmental pushbutton controls, little black-on-black
pushbuttons. I\'ve never learned how to set things without looking away
from the road.

It\'s good that the gas and brake pedals are pretty much standardized.
The transmission and parking brake aren\'t.

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 04:58:05 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 1:33:50?PM UTC-4, Flyguy wrote:
On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 7:47:31?AM UTC-7, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 12:17:34?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 05:12:36 GMT, Jan Panteltje <al...@comet.invalid> wrote:
On a sunny day (Mon, 21 Aug 2023 13:26:23 -0700) it happened John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in <5th7eipmc8nacnjbc...@4ax.com>:
snip
But has the content improved?

Instant access to data sheets and app notes and parts pricing are great. We used to have a library with hundreds of data books. We filled a dumpster when we moved.
In that case the content stayed pretty much the same, thought I did notice that TI data sheets got longer, and instead of leaving out embarrassing information they buried it on page 45 of a 55 page data sheet.
I kept a few classics.
Reaching out and grabbing the book is faster than pulling the data off the web.
Hey Bozo, when was the last time that you did that, a decade ago? Besides, pulling out an out-of-date databook is worse than having nothing. Most of the rest of us have highspeed internet - finding a particular databook in a room of them is FAR SLOWER than just downloading the latest dataSHEET.

Quite a bit of the datasheet archive is outdated, as in really old, stuff. But most of it is still accurate information.

Finding reliable selector guides is the biggest challenge of finding new parts.

The Digikey and Mouser sites are useful multi-vendor search engines,
with pricing too. They could be much better, especially Mouser\'s.

 

[Fred Bloggs]

On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 9:32:56 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 05:01:33 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 9:03:48?PM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 22-Aug-23 6:26 am, John Larkin wrote:

Pretty good rant:

https://dnyuz.com/2023/08/21/tesla-syndrome-explains-why-tech-is-making-us-miserable/


My wife\'s Honda Fit is great. If you want to change the hvac settings,
you grab a knob and turn it. You don\'t even have to take your eyes off
the road.

A car I had to hire a few days ago had the A/C control on a touch
screen. Just as well I had a passenger, because there\'s no way I could
safely have adjusted it while driving.

Most people familiarize themselves with the controls on an unfamiliar car BEFORE they drive off.
That would have to be a week-long online training course, with road
test.

My Audi has all incrmental pushbutton controls, little black-on-black
pushbuttons. I\'ve never learned how to set things without looking away
from the road.

That\'s where voice control can make for a big improvement.

\"Car, put fan on high speed.\"

\"Car, defrost windshield.\"

It\'s good that the gas and brake pedals are pretty much standardized.
The transmission and parking brake aren\'t.

The industry settled on the pedal location quite early on. The brake and accelerator locations are close together so the driver uses the same foot to activate them. Meaning you have take foot off accelerator to brake and vice versa.

 

[Fred Bloggs]

On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 9:36:11 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 04:58:05 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 1:33:50?PM UTC-4, Flyguy wrote:
On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 7:47:31?AM UTC-7, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 12:17:34?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 05:12:36 GMT, Jan Panteltje <al...@comet.invalid> wrote:
On a sunny day (Mon, 21 Aug 2023 13:26:23 -0700) it happened John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in <5th7eipmc8nacnjbc...@4ax.com>:
snip
But has the content improved?

Instant access to data sheets and app notes and parts pricing are great. We used to have a library with hundreds of data books. We filled a dumpster when we moved.
In that case the content stayed pretty much the same, thought I did notice that TI data sheets got longer, and instead of leaving out embarrassing information they buried it on page 45 of a 55 page data sheet.
I kept a few classics.
Reaching out and grabbing the book is faster than pulling the data off the web.
Hey Bozo, when was the last time that you did that, a decade ago? Besides, pulling out an out-of-date databook is worse than having nothing. Most of the rest of us have highspeed internet - finding a particular databook in a room of them is FAR SLOWER than just downloading the latest dataSHEET.

Quite a bit of the datasheet archive is outdated, as in really old, stuff. But most of it is still accurate information.

Finding reliable selector guides is the biggest challenge of finding new parts.


The Digikey and Mouser sites are useful multi-vendor search engines,
with pricing too. They could be much better, especially Mouser\'s.

I\'ve all but given up on them. Most of the time they run out of available candidate parts before I finish with the filters. And lots of times the filter options are ridiculous. Manufacturer selector tables are still the best, especially the option to list in descending/ ascending some important parameter of interest.

 

[Fred Bloggs]

On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 8:37:25 AM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 23-Aug-23 10:01 pm, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 9:03:48 PM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 22-Aug-23 6:26 am, John Larkin wrote:

Pretty good rant:

https://dnyuz.com/2023/08/21/tesla-syndrome-explains-why-tech-is-making-us-miserable/


My wife\'s Honda Fit is great. If you want to change the hvac settings,
you grab a knob and turn it. You don\'t even have to take your eyes off
the road.

A car I had to hire a few days ago had the A/C control on a touch
screen. Just as well I had a passenger, because there\'s no way I could
safely have adjusted it while driving.

Most people familiarize themselves with the controls on an unfamiliar car BEFORE they drive off.
That\'s not the issue. You have to look at a touch screen to use it.

Okay, but even that shouldn\'t be a problem if the display is backlit and symbols are big enough. What make/ model was it?

On another note about inappropriately designed technology, I was using
on-line check-in for a flight (what does it even mean to check-in
online?). They said they\'d send the boarding pass to my phone. But what
they emailed was a link to a page that could be retrieved to show the
boarding pass. So it wasn\'t on the phone.

I don\'t have broadband access on my phone - I have almost no need for
such a thing, and see no reason to pay for it. At check-in time, the
airport\'s free WiFi was down. So I had no access to the boarding pass.

Nest time print out a backup of the pass to take with you.
Funny how I thought of that before the flight out, but my printer was
too heavy to take with me on the trip to print out the one for the
flight back.

Can\'t you save the boarding pass as a JPG to Gallery folder or something similar?

Sylvia.

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 07:27:04 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 9:36:11?AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 04:58:05 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 1:33:50?PM UTC-4, Flyguy wrote:
On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 7:47:31?AM UTC-7, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 12:17:34?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 05:12:36 GMT, Jan Panteltje <al...@comet.invalid> wrote:
On a sunny day (Mon, 21 Aug 2023 13:26:23 -0700) it happened John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in <5th7eipmc8nacnjbc...@4ax.com>:
snip
But has the content improved?

Instant access to data sheets and app notes and parts pricing are great. We used to have a library with hundreds of data books. We filled a dumpster when we moved.
In that case the content stayed pretty much the same, thought I did notice that TI data sheets got longer, and instead of leaving out embarrassing information they buried it on page 45 of a 55 page data sheet.
I kept a few classics.
Reaching out and grabbing the book is faster than pulling the data off the web.
Hey Bozo, when was the last time that you did that, a decade ago? Besides, pulling out an out-of-date databook is worse than having nothing. Most of the rest of us have highspeed internet - finding a particular databook in a room of them is FAR SLOWER than just downloading the latest dataSHEET.

Quite a bit of the datasheet archive is outdated, as in really old, stuff. But most of it is still accurate information.

Finding reliable selector guides is the biggest challenge of finding new parts.


The Digikey and Mouser sites are useful multi-vendor search engines,
with pricing too. They could be much better, especially Mouser\'s.

I\'ve all but given up on them. Most of the time they run out of available candidate parts before I finish with the filters. And lots of times the filter options are ridiculous. Manufacturer selector tables are still the best, especially the option to list in descending/ ascending some important parameter of interest.

The D and M searches at least lead one to a manufacturer. I\'ve
discovered manufacturers that I didn\'t know existed, or found that
Littlefuse now makes mosfets.

Mouser is crazy. Ask a simple question and it complains about too many
parameters, or ignores a selection, or finds nothing.

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 07:53:29 -0700, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 07:27:04 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 9:36:11?AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 04:58:05 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 1:33:50?PM UTC-4, Flyguy wrote:
On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 7:47:31?AM UTC-7, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 12:17:34?AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 05:12:36 GMT, Jan Panteltje <al...@comet.invalid> wrote:
On a sunny day (Mon, 21 Aug 2023 13:26:23 -0700) it happened John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in <5th7eipmc8nacnjbc...@4ax.com>:
snip
But has the content improved?

Instant access to data sheets and app notes and parts pricing are great. We used to have a library with hundreds of data books. We filled a dumpster when we moved.
In that case the content stayed pretty much the same, thought I did notice that TI data sheets got longer, and instead of leaving out embarrassing information they buried it on page 45 of a 55 page data sheet.
I kept a few classics.
Reaching out and grabbing the book is faster than pulling the data off the web.
Hey Bozo, when was the last time that you did that, a decade ago? Besides, pulling out an out-of-date databook is worse than having nothing. Most of the rest of us have highspeed internet - finding a particular databook in a room of them is FAR SLOWER than just downloading the latest dataSHEET.

Quite a bit of the datasheet archive is outdated, as in really old, stuff. But most of it is still accurate information.

Finding reliable selector guides is the biggest challenge of finding new parts.


The Digikey and Mouser sites are useful multi-vendor search engines,
with pricing too. They could be much better, especially Mouser\'s.

I\'ve all but given up on them. Most of the time they run out of available candidate parts before I finish with the filters. And lots of times the filter options are ridiculous. Manufacturer selector tables are still the best, especially the option to list in descending/ ascending some important parameter of interest.

The D and M searches at least lead one to a manufacturer. I\'ve
discovered manufacturers that I didn\'t know existed, or found that
Littlefuse now makes mosfets.

All Littlefuse literature and data sheets are called media.pdf and
many are corrupt. I\'d complain but I\'d have to fill out a giant form.

\"The easiest thing in the world is not to sell.\"