I want knobs in my car, but I specially want no GPS tracking, no connection to the internet. My not-that-old dead-dinosaur-powered car doesn't have it, but I'd like to switch to an electric car in the next few years and I'm fearing it.
Will anyone build an electric but dumb car? I know some of the earlier electrics were dumb (in this desirable sense) but they also had significat compromises. Will it be possible to buy a privacy-respecting, good, new-ish electric car in a few years? It looks unlikely...
(I'm honestly asking, someone here will know way more than me about this)
> The Background: In 2019, the European Commission and the European Council jointly approved a regulation that will require new safety measures in motor vehicles starting July 2022, including the installation of so-called "Event Data Recorders," a device similar to "black boxes" in aircrafts.
From what I heard the car company has access to this device at all times and does not need a court order to listen in. They are supposed to only use it when the car has had an accident but it's a terrible precedent.
Edit: forgot the link https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/black-boxes-in-automobiles...
My car recording what happens for accidents doesn't sound awful. It could even record my last 30 minutes of locations, all you would need to analyze a crash.
It recording my locations long-term, and specially sending them somewhere, sucks.
This is what Bollinger Motors was going to do, but then they pivoted to building platforms for commercial vehicles instead.
In the 80s I remember coming home with mud caked on my clothes, shaking them off and throwing them in the washer. I'd even throw my muddy sneakers in the wash. If I try that with a modern low-water unit there's still dirt on them after a wash. The SpeedQueen will handle this kind of heavy soiling.
It seems like modern washers are designed for modern (mostly indoor) living. They freshen clothes, but they don't really wash them.
Searching for the concept now, I can only find this article:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/make-dishwashers-that-clean-aga...
My modern front load washer gets clothes clean. It also doesn’t severely abrade them. As I understand it, this combination of features is unavailable in a top-loader. Top-loaders with agitators clean well but damage clothing due to rubbing against the agitator. Top-loaders without agitators don’t clean well.
(Fundamentally, front loading is just a better design. There is no reason to submerge clothes for the whole cycle; to the contrary, one wants the clothes to move relative to the water. With a top loader, the clothes and the water move as a unit and gravity doesn’t help at all except to the extent that it avoids needing a seal on the door. With a front loader, gravity actively assists the process. And, aside from saving water, the fact that less water is used means that less detergent is needed to achieve a given concentration.)
Make fun of modern low-water appliances all you like, but a lot of them are much better than the things they replaced even if you don’t care about water usage.
I have friends with cheaper dishwashers and they do not clean well at all on eco modes.
Everything's relative.
I wonder about people complaining about this - whether it takes 1 hour or 3 hours, are you sitting in your kitchen waiting for the dishwasher to complete? Put it on after a meal and next time you're in the kitchen it will be done...
I've seriously considered taking it apart to remove the buzzer.
I had rented a place with a washer that ruined all of my clothes. I didn't figure out whats happening untill it was too late
Wash on delicate with Cold water my friends!
I can’t say I have ever really cared about the time taken for a dishwasher as it’s set and forget.
People in this thread are talking about the SpeedQueen washing machine. Is there something similar for dishwashers? I would pay good money for a dishwasher that actually cleaned my dishes. I don't even care if it's loud!
Video on the subject: https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04
There may be something unusual wrong with our dishwasher. Although we clean its filter regularly, sometimes a kind of brown slime forms along the walls and around the filter, and I have to give it a deeper cleaning. Bosch had no idea what this was! I'm curious if anyone else has experienced something like that.
Interesting if this is a US difference - but here (in the UK) at least dishwashers (usually? I suppose I don't want to claim to speak for 100%) only have a cold water inlet; they do their own heating.
Overall I've been quite happy with my premium-dishwasher experience, though there are a few little things that I don't love, like the fact that the rollers on the middle rack are no longer independently-replaceable. Seems like a huge step backward to have to replace the entire rack for like $200 just because one of those fails.
As an example Frigidaire, GE, KitchenAid, Whirlpool will only work with hot water; Samsung, Ikea, Beko will only work with cold water; and Bosch, Miele, Electrolux, LG will work with either.
> As an example Frigidaire, GE, KitchenAid, Whirlpool will only work with hot water
Yeah, afaik without actually looking into it, of those only Whirlpool is distributed here (KitchenAid stuff yes for sure, but not I think dishwashers) and as above I'm pretty sure they must be different models, just like LH/RH driver cars.
Of course you can import whatever you want, but then you should probably expect to deal with some such plumbing (and potentially electrical, at very least changing the plug) oddities.
In the US, it's common to have a water softener on the hot water line, intended to soften the inputs for appliances and showers. The cold water line is not softened, to avoid drinking sodium-laced water.
I don't claim authority on the matter though.
So it got pretty bad before we realized we needed to do that. We cleaned it very thoroughly at that point and now clean the filters at least weekly, but we still have these problems.
I also choose the eco setting on my washing machine and wash at 30 degrees and my clothes become clean (but I don't roll around in mud very often). That's a cheap Beko model that is about 8 years old.
The workaround is that modern SpeedQueen washers have a "normal/eco" default mode which doesn't do a good job at all. This mode exists to satisfy the DoE policy. The washer is intended to never be run on this mode, and all the other modes do a fantastic washing job.
I have the newer TC5 with the bogus "normal/eco" cycle. It's a great washer as long as the government mandated useless mode isn't selected.
Here's a nyt/wirecutter article about it: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/speed-queen-revie...
Here’s Wirecutter doing an actual comparison:
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/speed-queen-revie...
And we will be something like that grandpa that can't unblock the mobile phone. (for example, use that new blockchain smart contract to open the fridge and order some food NFTs)
Not all old people are luddites or simply too inept to deal with change, sometimes they make conscious decisions to reject a given change yet are forced by the rest of society on occasion to deal with it. New technologies need to clarify the tradeoffs that exist and what the real value add is beyond marketing propoganda.
Many are obsessed with social media and smart devices all over their home (regardless of age). Meanwhile, people who frequent this site are largely technologists who are very tech savvy, sometimes the people creating these very systems, and many of them actively reject such technology and systems because they know exactly how harmful things can be. It's not because they're old, it's because they're informed.
More and more business practices are losing their alignment with society and pulling more value than they create and people simply don't want to deal with it. I applaud markets actually functioning healthily and rejecting abusive practices. This DRM may exist for a lot of good reasons, refillability simply may be impractical after skimming over the writeup for some. Meanwhile you have systems like DRM on KCups coffee makers that are completely ludicrous.
This struck me with full force when I was invited to the Magic Castle in LA, one of the last venues to require formal wear at all times. One of the most magical things about that place is how it transforms a whole range of everyday visitors who might be people you wouldn't want to hang out with at their local bar into highly civilized men and women on their tip-top behavior. Vegas and air travel both used to operate on this principle. Now we might call it "LARPing" but when it was a social norm it was called "going out".
I don't think it's my getting older that caused me to think more like my grandfather. I think time proved him right.
I don't agree at all. A huge amount has changed since airlines enforced formal wear - for example, I can fly to Prague/Budapest/Amsterdam for under €30 from most of Europe, and I can fly return to New York from London for less than weeks wages of minimum wage.
> This struck me with full force when I was invited to the Magic Castle in LA, one of the last venues to require formal wear at all times. One of the most magical things about that place is how it transforms a whole range of everyday visitors who might be people you wouldn't want to hang out with at their local bar into highly civilized men and women on their tip-top behavior.
What makes you think that the dress code is what made them behave, and not that they were invited by someone who put their neck out for them, or the $50 cover charge, or the $20 drinks? Anecdotally, I've seen plenty of people behaving terribly in formalwear over the years.
The three flights guaranteed to have a stag party.
The common way to look at this is that flying has gotten cheaper. Another way to look at - the way the Soviets would have looked at it - is that the masses have gotten much wealthier.
So if you agree that rich people are not necessarily better-behaved than poor people, and that anyone who can afford to fly for vacation is wealthy by the standards of 40 years ago, then there's some other explanation for why people feel alright making complete asses of themselves on RyanAir. I submit that when people feel like trash, they act like trash. When they feel like they're shown respect, they act with respect. When the people around you are dressed formally it's a sign of respect for the place and for each other, which creates a circle of respectful behavior.
This is why in my grandfather's time even the poorest folks had "Sunday clothes" and acted a certain way in them. Certain activities like flying or going to a casino called for your Sunday best.
I deliberately picked them as textbook examples. I can fly to pretty much anywhere in Europe for under £50 return. Air travel has gotten incredibly cheap - last time I flew back to Ireland it cost me as much to get to the airport than it did to fly.
> When the people around you are dressed formally it's a sign of respect for the place and for each other, which creates a circle of respectful behavior.
And yet formalwear is often seen at parties, weddings, work holiday nights. Go to a bar in Manhattan, Vegas,LA where people are wearing dresses and suits that cost as much as my car and see the behaviour.
> This is why in my grandfather's time even the poorest folks had "Sunday clothes" and acted a certain way in them.
They behaved a certain way because of the environment they were in, not because of how they were dressed. It was, and still would be unacceptable to show up to church being loud and boisterous, and in my time attending s church(albeit it's been about 20 years) I don't ever recall seeing anyone removed or acting out other than children, despite wearing "normal" clothes.
For instance, since I was 25 (I'm in my 40s), I've worn a suit, tie and sometimes a vest whenever I travel internationally. Especially aboard a train. I learned this when I was a poor traveler living from hostel to hostel, and camping. You will be surprised how you're treated if you dress well. You're showing respect to the people around you.
I think you're willfully missing the point I'm making, which is that the act of putting on better-than-your-usual garments is just one part of a whole set of customs which signal behavioral ideas that society has completely chosen to forget. The problems with social media could be solved by moderating and kicking people off. The problems with casinos and airlines could be solved by rejecting people who don't take the time to look in the mirror.
Those people aren't owed a flight, a seat at a blackjack table, or a voice on a private social media platform. These problems are all of a single piece.
You have to earn a position in society by your bearing and actions and speech. No one is owed it. No one is born "noble" and no one rich is born with what we call class.
But take a man who works in a clothing factory 6 days a week, and tell him he's going to see a show in Las Vegas: The man will buy a suit. And he will keep that suit in the closet for the rest of his life and say: That's the suit I wore to the show in Las Vegas! He wants to have class.
These experiences are not supposed to be cheap. They're important and memorable precisely because they are expensive. No one learns good behavior without receiving a certain amount of social disdain for bad behavior. The rituals and clothing and the imaginary world of luxe that we clothe ourselves in is for each other's and our own benefit; this is the meaning of civilization. What we have now is a kind of barbarism, with people barely worth the air they breathe. Put a suit on the man and see if he can stand and act like a man.
Surely that in and of itself exactly proves _my_ point - it doesn't matter that you're forced to dress up and be respectful, the person doesn't beget the clothes. What matters is the intent that you've made a decision to go to an occasion that demands respect.
> You will be surprised how you're treated if you dress well.
Having been forced to dress up for various events over the years, I can't say I've noticed a difference in how I've been treated when dressed up vs when in my civvies. One thing I _have_ noticed is I am treated more formally - don't confuse formality for being treated well. Formality means procedure and rituals. Being treated well means care, politeness and attention to detail. If you're on an easyjet flight from London to Alicante, no amount of dressing up is going to get you any better treatment. Similarly, if you fly business class Emirates from London to Dubai, as long as you meet their dress code you'll be treated like royalty - the difference is how much you're paying.
Here's an experiment for you - go into the fanciest bar in your town, order two beers and tip the bartender $50 and see how well you're treated for the rest of the night. Speaking from experience (accidental - stupid american notes are all the same colour), you will get the service you _want_, not the service they _offer_.
> I think you're willfully missing the point I'm making, which is that the act of putting on better-than-your-usual garments is just one part of a whole set of customs which signal behavioral ideas that society has completely chosen to forget.
No, that's not what you said. You said, and I quote:
> I remember my grandfather in Vegas lamenting that allowing people to wear trashy street clothes or anything less than formal wear / suit and tie into the casinos, or on airplanes, would lead to more and more bad behavior.
That's not claiming that society has chosen to leave behind the customs associated with formal dressing, that's saying that the decision to do so has led to more and more bad behaviour. I _do_ agree that society has decided to leave behind those customs, but that in and of itself has not caused more bad behaviour. The advent of cheap air travel is almost certainly the single biggest cause of behaviour changes in air travel, and the increased individualism is (IMO) responsible for the changes in other areas - to use your magic castle example again, the reason people _behave_ there is because they have their invitee's standing to uphold. Remove that, and the magic castle becomes just like any of the other expensive bars in the area.
I always tip well at bars, and I get served well. But that's not the test. The test is walking up unknown to a crowded bar and having the bartender come to you first, knowing you're going to be a good customer. It almost makes you feel the need to tip extra well. And that's what society should be about.
I don't care that flights are cheap. Great. I just want people to live up to that. I don't blame them for being maleducated, but I think they should be educated in showing some class.
Well, for me, it's a lifetime (nearly) of observing how people who dress up for an occasion behave as opposed to those who don't. Churches would make for an interesting exploration in regards to this topic, some still dress, many don't. I don't think your points your other three points are invalid, though.
I didn't know that the Castle had become so expensive. I was a member for about three years in the 80's. At the time, as a blue-collar stiff, I found it quite affordable -- of course, I paid no cover charge.
While some hoped to see celebrities there, a not infrequent occurrence, I was thrilled to meet close-up magic icons like John Carney, Derek Dingle, and Dai Vernon, and to watch many other notables such as Daryl, Bruce Cervon, Eugene Burger, Paul Harris, and Earl Nelson.
One day, a couple of blocks over, at Hollywood Magic (a magic retailer) I watched Harry Anderson of Night Court fame, throwing three-card monte on the customer side of the counter while holding his three-year-old daughter in one arm as he did it -- perhaps he just stood her on the counter with his arm around her as he threw? Not sure, it's been many years. Despite, being very familiar with the sleight, I could not follow the movement of the queen any better than any mark would/could. He was about as humble as they come, and I couldn't have cared much less about his celebrity, but I sure was impressed with his technique.
I've only been once as an invite, from what I recall it was ~$50 for the cover charge, we paid about ~$50 a head per meal, and spent probably another ~$100 on drinks each. It was a unique evening, I had a great time, and wouldn't take it back, but it was definitely one of the more expensive evenings I had in LA.
Short take: Going to the Magic Castle is roughly equivalent to flying on the Concorde. It's an expense well worth it for an unforgettable experience.
[edit: yeah, I'm not dead, I know the Concorde isn't around anymore but that's the point]
There is no objectively right opinion. It just depends on how much you are bothered by either downside.
I'd be happy with IoT appliances iff:
--They weren't designed to fail because of poor power conditioning and thermal management.
--They weren't vectors for botnets due to poor security.
--They ran on my personal cloud or LAN rather than some godawful Chinese server.
--I had veto power over all SW updates, and I could roll them back.
--They didn't constantly beep at me as if I were their servant, rather than the other way around.
--Their MTBF was longer than "dumb" appliances rather than shorter.
I can design systems like this, but apparently the big white goods manufacturers cannot, or don't want to.
There is a market for it.
I've never heard it put this succinctly. Are the same companies doing all of these things because the expertise transfers? Do they have journals and conferences together?
Using Firefox to read PDFs now and its a pleasure. Its blazingly fast and does exactly what I need.
Adobe can jump off a cliff.
That's rich, considering that I'm 18 and I have the same views.
Not using a piece of a service (the ads) is not stealing, nor likely is it violating any service contact.
How do you react?
1. Tell me to go to hell.
2. Try to figure out a way to eat the cake without getting your thumb smashed.
3. Accept the offer.
1 & 2 are perfectly rational human reactions. 3 probably indicates some degree of mental illness on your part.
There's also probably a deep sickness in the society and culture that allowed me to make the offer in the first place.
is switching channels or otherwise ignoring the TV while ads are on also stealing?
- Time - Power
Hell, print a guide on the inside of the door on how to adjust power for defrosting or whatever. I rarely ever press more than :30 button, and changing power is more annoying than it should be.
I regularly hear people complain about their devices, because usability wasn’t considered due to different root causes. Some people don’t know anything about usability (not a “Senior Support Engineering Manager”), some people buy cheap, some people don’t get to choose (rent), many people don’t think to check usability, some people let their partner buy something unsuitable.
If you use a kitchen, then pay attention to what other practical friends use. Your appliances are tools you work with: spend effort to buy good tools.
I bought a Breville Quick Start microwave, chosen for combination of brand trust, price, and usability. It has a rotating power knob, a rotating timer knob, a 30 second quick start button, and a bunch of feature buttons which I don’t use hidden in the door jam. Rotate the knobs to change power or time while the microwave is running: https://www.breville.com/au/en/products/microwaves/bmo735.ht...
I inherited this current microwave from the previous owner, and it will be eventually replaced.
As an example pre-steaming has become a well rounded feature, and it will be done as a separate phase during the pre-heating, to switch to full-blown oven mode from there. I could totally time and set it all myself, but honestly I wouldn't bother half of the time and settle for the worse result to spare my time.
Same for cycle like lower temperature fermentation -> cooking for bread dow, or auto-stop by temperature detection for simple reheating.
All of these actually work well, and I feel in the "before" time we were just more accepting of mediocre results and/or spending half a day on it.
I get that icons are easier because you don't need to translate things for every country, but surely it can't be that much effort or expensive? My washing machine has text in Dutch and French, and it was one of the cheaper options.
The "sensor cook" on mine does a really great job with potatoes for example. They come out about as good with that as they do when I bake them in the toaster oven or regular oven using a thermometer to determine the cooking time, but the microwave is a lot faster and less effort.
--for example, use that new blockchain smart contract to open the fridge and order some food NFTs.
So in this instance grandpa would be using the smart contract to buy ledger space for a NFT about food? Because NFT's arn't food.
If you had toddlers in the early 00's(the only time I witnessed it), or were a toddler then, you were likely exposed to plenty of Disney Channel and the frequent barrage of 10 second commercials. Bad programming, IMO.
Now? Youtube is nuts.
The very same people will claim that you can ignore ads and they aren't a problem, and that free market is efficient and doesn't waste resources
There's some reason to think that this has already happened to some extent. In particular, many of the changed purchasing habits of millennials vs genX and boomers are usually attributed to ad-blindness. You'd expect this to go even further in the next generation.
Now imagine what they could do with today's telemetry obsessed economy.
When I was in my 20s I thought democracy was a given... "getting old" might just mean you've been alive long enough to realise that democracy is fragile and the shit sometimes hits the fan... We are one misguided vote away from handing over the ultimate panopticon to a malevolent government, and we will never be able to organise a resistance to win power back, because it will be snuffed out in its infancy .
All new advancements in "tech" have actually been in money making. Like appliances that require special cartridges for no good reason other than it being more profitable for the manufacturer. They finally adapter the printer-ink model, heh.
Did you know most contracts forbid recycling companies from taking out parts and selling them? Because it would cut into profits on overpriced spare parts, of course (official reason is "we can't trust that they'll perform well"). And so they go to landfills or at best, are melted down into something usable at huge energy costs.
Yes, people will put up with it. I hope not for long. I know people making 50k/year (good salary for EU) and literally spending it all on the "best" shit, who wish to buy a house and saying it's impossible. Then there's the people making 20k/year who save for many long years and buy a 300k+ house, or at least an apartment.
Willing to bet who will be better off in a decade or so? Or whose kids? Ha ha, I might actually lose that bet if a war or catastrophic natural events happen.
...upon which the brain wiring experts get bought and rewire those brains to only see "approved" ads which gives the wheel another push. Around and around it goes, like a circle game.
But how much time is still possible to find boring technology? Unless you find used? And you won't find used for a very long amount of time.
Maybe this is a good business case, produce boring technology for people who don't want connected cupboards and dish washer and prefer physical controls over digital interfaces.
Is there a way to dumbify a car?
His view is that people probably want a washing machine that can keep track of it's duty cycles and let you know if water quality is affecting it's performance or if a part is getting close to end of life and organize purchase of the part and an repairer to do the fix. The gimmicks of being able to get alerts about the status of appliances to your phone are just fluff. But it's early days and people at the top who make this decisions are still working them out.
Sounds good, but you can do it with a few sensors leading to an LCD screen (and a manual in a yellowing clear plastic bag taped to the back of the machine.) And you don't have to disable the machine if that microprocessor burns out, or god forbid put an entire computer in there.
> and organize purchase of the part and an repairer to do the fix.
Not only do I not need any appliance to do this, but
1) if they cared about parts and service, they could have a nice website for this stuff, and they don't. So judging them based on that, this will also be neglected (after being marketed.)
2) this would really be a way to prevent people from getting parts who don't have a current service contract, and to screw them on the prices. It would also be a way to take a huge cut from the repair companies who participate in the program, who would also be large rent-seekers (who could make a deal with device manufacturers to be included in the software) skimming just as much by farming out the work to subcontractors.
End result: single thing goes wrong, repair and parts cost more than the device. Don't worry, they're running a promotion that gives you credit towards buying their latest model.
Instead, I installed a smart plug with power sensor and hooked it up to a phone dashboard via MQTT and Node-RED so I can work out the current state of the machine (by power draw), and as a fun bonus I get an email at the start and end of each wash/dry cycle.
That's good enough for me - I can't see the point of being able to set the wash program by phone as I have to be physically at the machine when loading it.
If I could use an official app to see machine anomalies or predicted failures without the feeling that I am being bugged or data mined that would be handy.
Allegedly, the Homewhiz protocol is 'Open', but references lead to ISO/IEC 30118-4:2021, which is a multi-document spec for which you have to pay. I also would not be surprised if the appliance's Bluetooth connectivity won't play nice unless there's an outbound 'heartbeat' to a remote server via the phone.
I avoid anything that ties me to the manufacturer. Once one of their MBAs decides that the product line is no longer profitable, the servers go offline, the software stops getting updates, the cartridges stop being produced.
I like self-contained products that I can repair myself (within reason). I have growing faith in my ability to repair things. However, manufacturers find it profitable to withhold the tools, parts and knowledge I need to do this.
* I know not all MBAs are like this but there's considerable damage *
I decided to replace the bearing and (after measuring) found the correct SKF bearing. After picking it up at the local dealer and paying 7 euro's, I started. But what did Whirlpool do? They made it impossible to remove only the bearing and seal. You had to replace the whole drum, which costs about half of the machine.
Why? I emailed Whirlpool and got a reply where I could buy the new drum..SIGH
Anyone else use Consumer Reports?
I just didn't have it in me to "research" all that stuff online. On one side, you have scummy review sites or sites with uneducated reviewers, and on the other, very opinionated aficionados who want you to spend $$$$$ on every little thing, or else it's just an inferior experience (of mowing the lawn or something).
I'm sure CR isn't perfect, but sometimes I just need a recommendation that's not complete garbage and then to move on with life.
They still work fine and have required no repairs in the 15 years I've had them.
[1] https://www.geappliances.com/appliance/GE-3-2-Cu-Ft-Super-Pl...
[2] https://www.geappliances.com/appliance/GE-7-0-Cu-Ft-Super-Ca...
There’s a Canadian company Victory that sells a couple PCB-free models at prices that are reasonable.
Interesting coinage. I wonder if something like it will gain traction. I see 'silicon-free' has been used on HN twice in relevant contexts so far:
This was also the case with my subcompact car. It needed a $400 repair but the entire powertrain is integrated so you have to spend $4000 in labor disassembling and reassembling it.
We went with a lower end model that cost about 50% more than the similar sized models available at Lowes/Home Depot. Considering we'd already repaired the old unit a handful of times and it cost in that range, we only need it to last about 4 years before we break even.
We just replaced our "high tech" Maytag dryer and its "advanced" feature set for a low tech SpeedQueen, the same dryers you find in most Laundromats. Why? Repairability. While we could _technically_ replace the burnt out fuse in the Maytag, it would take at least two hours for a skilled technician (translated to several days for me and my spouse spread across a few weeks) and frankly we want to repair and get back to life. After a few days of looking into the issue and considering the option, we bit the bullet and bought a new one. The old one just had too many fault modes to consider even if we did successfully repair it.
I take the same neo-Luddite view on a lot of recent "technology" improvements. The BoringTechnology.club website has the right idea.