A Mythbuster's Biggest Tech Headaches (and Solutions) 395
An anonymous reader writes "The Mythbusters' Jamie Hyneman shares his top tech annoyances. Hyneman runs down the little things that bug him about everything from tools (exotic chargers) to cars (useless features). He also notes that there's a lot of room for improvement on PC desktops: 'In addition to being buggy ... extra features tend to bog down your system by demanding more processing power and memory. Computer-makers: Don't load up operating systems with features and then make us sweat to figure out how to get rid of the fat ... There's another solution available to consumers: Switch to a Linux-based OS such as Ubuntu. Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.'"
No offence, (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No offence, (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ditto on the charger for the Nintendo DS whose plug is a very slight variation from a standard mini USB jack.
Re:No offence, (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, there is. Getting L+R audio and video can't be done via USB and plug it into a stereo and/or TV with minimal electronics. Plus, there are ways to remote control the iPod via the connector, although I suspect that could be done via USB pretty easily.
I don't think they even had micro USB when the iPod came out, either.
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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061219/092747.shtml [techdirt.com]
I am not sure if they were successful or not (but given the plethora of chargers still on the market i'm guessing not). Another note, it is possible to get L+R stereo from a mini USB port (the motorola razr has a dongle that does just that. It should be entirely possible to make a dongle that does video out.
I get so tired of companies pushing thier proprietory solutions when an
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The first iPods supported FireWire and had standard 6-pin FireWire connectors on them. On later iPods, the dock connector was a way to shoehorn FireWire, USB, audio, video, and remote-control functionality into a compact connector that wouldn't chew up much board space...an important c
Re:No offence, (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:No offence, (Score:5, Funny)
Layne
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What I don't want is my phone to attempt to be a PDA. A phone's screen is not big enough to handle the amount of information I want on the screen (and me able to see it clearly.) But a PDA's screen is easily large
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What I don't want is my phone to attempt to be a PDA. A phone's screen is not big enough to handle the amount of information I want on the screen (and me able to see it clearly.)
This is a personal bugbear for me too. I'm currently in the market for a PDA. Not a phone/PDA combo - I want to be able to use the PDA while the phone's busy with something else, like allowing me to listen to somebody at the other end of the phone without being on speaker so the quality suffers. The usual suspects are no longer s
Re:No offence, (Score:5, Insightful)
I love Jamie and Adam, but he needs to realize that engineering!=profits, hence all these annoyances.
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I love Jamie and Adam, but he needs to realize that engineering!=profits
Since when? Nothing alone = profits. But in general, better products at lower profits = profits. (Try to remember Jamie has run quite a successful FX business for a number of years, so I'd say he knows at least something about business)
With standard batteries, tool makers could focus on making tools, rather than another rev of a battery for toolx. Let the battery guys figure out the batteries. The reason it doesn't happen isn't pro
Re:No offence, (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, it's kind of nice to get support for this kind of view from a celebrity. It's like "no, you're not crazy. Jamie Hyneman Agrees!!".
I am in total agreement with his stance on Vista for example. (I find it almost hilarious that MS now includes a movie editor, MSN, media this and media that, but still doesn't provide a decent text editor.)
You've missed the point (Score:5, Insightful)
...because we're on Slashdot. We all know what Jamie is saying is true.
But he's near-famous. He has a show that millions of people watch. And he's saying that Vista blows, and why it blows, and that Ubuntu kicks its ass.
And he's saying it in Popular Mechanics. You see those everywhere. My barber has a rack of them by his waiting bench. So does my doctor. You see PM magazines all over a doctor's waiting area.
It's called getting the word out.
A lot of us here on /. complain about how Joe Sixpack has no clue about computer issues. Well - now Joe Sixpack has an opportunity to be sitting in a dentist's office, and see a PM magazine with Jamie on the cover and think "Hey cool - think I'll read that. That's the show where they blow stuff up. It'll be interesting to hear what he has to say."
And suddenly he's exposed to the problems with Vista, and the joys of Ubuntu by a person he respects and likes. Maybe he'll call up his geeky cousin later on in the day on Jamie's recommendation and ask him what this Ubuntu thingy is.
This is how mindshare happens. A war is a million little battles, and we just won one.
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Screw *ALL* OS's! (Score:4, Funny)
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I do use a keyboard instead of C++, you insensitive clod!
Re:You've missed the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, if you had spent any time AT ALL on the Ubuntu forums, you would know that. The only people who generally don't get help are those that go in with a snotty, arrogant attitude. Although even they are OFFERED help, but their own attitude usually gets in the way of them being able to absorb it. I have myself been a Linux newbie, and have even recently, well out of my newbie stage, gotten stuck on an oddball issue now and again, and have always been able to find friendly and useful help on the Ubuntu forums.
Honestly, that is what drew me to Ubuntu. While it is a very useful distro, I found the greatest draw was the near complete LACK of the classic Linux community snobbery that so often pervades web forums and IRC channels. Ubuntu users, particularly the more experienced ones, seem to be just generally nicer people.
Of course, I have seen their moderators in action, and have seen flame posts vanish within moments of being posted. So I'm sure that a crack moderator staff has at least something to do with that. However, even THAT redounds well to Ubuntu. It shows that the community and Canonical understand that good PR is very often a key to success. And that the web forums are the Ubuntu community's public face. So they work hard to keep it looking good and working smoothly by stamping out any trolls and "cult of personality" types.
Ok, I'll get off the fanboy soapbox for now. I guess I'm just saying that your point really has no merit, as it doesn't jibe with the reality of the Ubuntu forums that I have experienced on a regular basis.
Re:No offence, (Score:5, Funny)
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Browser . hasAddOn ( 'NoScript' ) || User . handIn ( 'GeekLicence' );
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Therefore, I mod this +1, Plausible.
Shame he didn't... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Shame he didn't... (Score:5, Insightful)
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A couple of years ago Jamie and Adam did an interview with Slashdot, and they explained that while they would love to do some computer myths, they just don't work on camera. Unless you take a spammer out to the bomb range, I suppose. :-)
I can only think of one computer hardware myth offhand, about CDs fragmenting when CDROM drives spun them too fast.
...laura
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Re:Shame he didn't... (Score:5, Informative)
No, he "posted" it to Popular Mechanics, a magazine frequently read by people who will understand the issue, but may not have encountered Vista or Linux before.
Geekgasm (Score:2, Funny)
Jamie's the one who tries NOT to get hurt on the show, of course.
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Of course, when he does get hurt, it looks more painful than Adam's frequent miscues. That shot he gave himself when cutting the line to his handheld grappling hook winch was rough...it almost ranks up there with Adam putting his lips in the vacuum motor.
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Re:Geekgasm (Score:5, Interesting)
Still, going from the choice of the not computer literate to talking about Linux as a desktop OS, in a non-computer tech magazine...that's a sign of progress. Is that another crack I hear forming in MS's empire?
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Apparently Jamie got some time between the last season and now to test out that Ubuntu thingy and he really likes it. I'm a Linux/Mac-sysadmin, I don't necessarily like Ubuntu for myself (too dumbed down) but my parents currently run it on their desk- and laptop
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Bloat? (Score:5, Funny)
But Mandriva have never let a little thing like that stand in their way.
Re:Bloat? (Score:5, Funny)
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I believe he's spectacularly missing the point anyway.
There's another solution available to consumers: Switch to a Linux-based OS such as Ubuntu. Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.
That simply isn't true. All the crap that comes installed with your average vendor's Windows PC isn't there because the customer pays for it, it's there because the computer vendor gets paid to include it.
This a great marketing model for commercial providers of security products and the like to hook clueless people, and they are more than happy to pay a small premium to get their three month trials onto a zillion new PCs. If you as PC vendor are sup
Adam (Score:5, Funny)
And another thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
So if Jamie represents Linux... (Score:5, Funny)
My guess is Buster.
Re:So if Jamie represents Linux... (Score:5, Funny)
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Corrected for him... (Score:4, Funny)
Things will be getting simpler, and are already. (Score:5, Interesting)
In my car I tossed the 12V "cigarette lighter" from the dash to the truck. I also increased its power from a small 5A fuse to a 10A fuse, so I can run a reasonably sized 120V inverter (also in the trunk) to power a few devices on-the-go.
In the place of the dash 12V adapter, I installed a nice custom panel with 3 USB ports. They're high power ports, so I can charge a phone, a GPS receiver, and a plethora of other devices that use USB to charge. In the future I'd like to connect one port to a radio so I can play music on-the-go without my iPod.
In the past, I've had relatively complicated small PCs to run my music system, but I'm seeing more and more options for in-vehicle PCs running Linux. Eventually I think we'll see a system that works well and is cheap. Since we only buy used cars, tossing the radio is one of the first things we do, and it's at most a loss of maybe $25 worth of electronics.
There are many things I wish were modernized, standardized, and more open. First, vehicle information is very proprietary. Why is it that cars can't report status information via a simple USB connection? All the information is either there, or could be generated VERY cheaply. I ran out of wiper fluid two days ago (lots of snow in Chicago lately), and I sat there thinking how lame it is that the wiper fluid reservoir doesn't have a simple sensor to detect low fluid (it's a 2001 vehicle, not THAT old). Even that could be transported across a USB chain with regular updates. Heck, a $2 sensor could even sense fluid at 3 levels. Simple enough.
At home, we have a DC run throughout the house wherever we upgraded our power, and I'm seriously thinking of changing it to USB charging. AC in the home is useful, but so many devices use DC (and the dreaded overheating wall-warts!) that I'm shocked that more devices aren't standardizing on DC. 18V, 5A+, not a big deal -- but so many devices could use it (charging tools, video games, cell phones, even some computer monitors). Simple, without needed ANOTHER heat-generating and wasting transformer. My laptop is DC, too, yet I need the darned transformer throughout the house.
But I still see more and more devices standardizing in many ways. Over time, manufacturers are seeing that power is a commodity, not a profit maker. I tell my friends and family to stop buying products that use proprietary charging hardware. With tools, the battery situation is frustrating, but I think we'll see some changes there. I like the idea of having a standard 6V pack, and just adding more if you need 12V or 18V. Even better would be a "serial/parallel" switch so you could go from 6V 1A to 6V 2A or 12V 1A with the flip of a switch. Ahh, to dream.
a small 5A fuse to a 10A fuse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Things will be getting simpler, and are already (Score:2)
Re:Things will be getting simpler, and are already (Score:2)
Sure, you may think you want it to notify you of this now, but try driving an Alero around. Anything that might be a problem, it notifies me. Every time I start the car, there is a bell and a light that doesn't turn off until the problem is corrected. Is it useful? Slightly. Does it
Re:Things will be getting simpler, and are already (Score:5, Informative)
Drawing twice the power than the wire was fused for is a good way to need another car soon. Unless you also upgraded the wire, I wouldn't recommend changing the fuse size.
I have a reasonably sized inverter in my trunk also, next to the battery. 1KW will power most anything except hair dryers you care to bring along.
At home, we have a DC run throughout the house wherever we upgraded our power,
This is not a good idea. Volts X Amps = Watts in DC circuits. To run a 100 watt laptop cross the house on 12 volts with less than 10% voltage drop requires a huge wire. Do the math.
http://www.otherpower.com/cgi-bin/webbbs/webbbs_config.pl?noframes;read=6346 [otherpower.com]
Don't forget a 50 foot cord is a 100 foot DC path.
To cut your loss in the wire by 100 as in a 10$ loss is now a 0.1% loss, go from 12 volts to 120 volts. That is the simple reason for the big inverter in the trunk. I can run a 100 foot 14 AWG extension cord and have less than 1% voltage drop in the cord to a 100 Watt laptop.
From the page "14AWG =
Now using the same cord and laptop but now using 120 volts. Instead of needing 8.3333 amps for the 100 watts, we now need 1/10 of that or 0.8333 amps. Our voltage loss is now 1/10th what it was or 0.49499 volts at 1/10th the current. We now lose 1/100th the power in the wire we were before while still delivering 100 watts to the laptop. Now the wire has a loss of 0.41 Watts. I don't need to boost anything to make up for it.
I'm shocked that more devices aren't standardizing on DC. 18V, 5A+, not a big deal -- but so many devices could use it (charging tools, video games, cell phones, even some computer monitors). Simple, without needed ANOTHER heat-generating and wasting transformer. My laptop is DC, too, yet I need the darned transformer throughout the house.
Do the math and you won't be shocked at all. I would rather lose 5 watts in a laptop power supply than 40 watts in the 50 foot wire from the battery fuse box to the laptop.
I've standardized on 120 VAC for almost everything. As a bonus, I don't have to buy special 12 volt CF bulbs at $15 each. I can use the buck a bulb ones instead. It's all about saving money. A 1 KW inverter is chaep and can be located very close to the battery to keep loss minimum in the low voltage wire.
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11234952&search=inverter&Mo=13&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-US&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Sp=S&N=5000043&whse=BC&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=Text_Search&Dr=P_CatalogNam [costco.com]
Re:Things will be getting simpler, and are already (Score:2)
Build yourself one of these [obddiag.net]. It's an OBDII-to-USB converter. It still requires *extensive* software on the computer side, but you're already talking about having that. On-board vehicle diagnostics are fairly complicated, but there are plenty of programs that handle it, many for free.
I agree it'd be nice to have sensors to detect fluid levels... but until sensors are more rel
Re:Things will be getting simpler, and are already (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubuntu no better (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't load up operating systems with features and then make us sweat to figure out how to get rid of the fat ... There's another solution available to consumers: Switch to a Linux-based OS such as Ubuntu. Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.'"
I don't see Ubuntu being a "better" solution in this regard. One can also make Ubuntu highly bloated. As the article mentions, one can reduce the Windows bloat by de-selecting options. How is Ubuntu inherently better in this regard?
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I have to say that I've been fairly impressed with Ubuntu thus far. It seems fairly stable and reliable, and the little update widget is remarkably painless, and has only insisted on a reboot a couple of times (for things like kernel changes). Add to that the ability to get software to do just about everything I want to do with either apt-get, synaptic, or that add/remove programs thingy, and there's no more dependency hell.
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As the lead guitarist of the Clash said (paraphrased) "It was easy for kids to jump from long haired glam rockers in the mid 70's to the short spikey haired punks in the late 70's over night. Had they wanted to do the reverse, they would have to wait a while for their hair to grow out."
Except with software it reserved so its easier to add than to remove.
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Crawl back under your bridge.
Re:Ubuntu no better (Score:4, Interesting)
ATi, however, crapped out drivers that don't work for years. Unfortunately, the answer is that you're SOL. I battled with a 9800 all in wonder pro for close to a month under gentoo then ubuntu before I just dropped back and made that machine into a server. So yes, the answer if you would like to use your machine with Ubuntu is to get a better video card. Sorry you had it put to you so rudely before, but that's what open development on one side and closed on the other gets you: winners and losers. If only they were all open.
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I'll let you say that it's not Ubuntu's fault that it doesn't support the 2nd-largest video card family. If that's how Ubuntu people debug, no fucking wonder it's flawed. ("It can't be MY system that's flawed, since I'm so brillant!") It's surely not the fact that the drivers become unstable after every kernel update. Perhaps there's a sense of ongoing defeatism at ATI because the API on the *nix kernels changes every release. "Fuck it, the driver will only be good for a month, so don't
This should annoy him (Score:5, Funny)
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lolcats just lose all funny when you have to disect them.
There is a business reason for crap software!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when the promise of cable TV was that you wouldn't have to watch commercials because you were already paying for TV? That didn't last long... the promise was broken and now you pay for TV service *AND* you have to watch commercials.
You pay for magazines and news papers and with the exception of consumer reports (at least that was the case in the past) you get commercial ads in there too!
It seems no business can resist the temptation to sell their customer's eyes to advertisers and other parties. It's a very bad business practice and one that eats at the trust that customers have with their vendors and service providers. But it's so common place these days that to do otherwise would be an exception rather than the rule. It's not an excuse for bad behavior, it's just a fact.
Dell does a lot less of that than others and you can certainly request that anything be loaded or not loaded as well. But the average consumer doesn't know this and so they are victimized by having their computers compromised right out of the box.
But there is a business reason for the extra crap-ware to be installed... they get money when they do it.
... no business reason (Score:2)
Since most proprietary OS vendors try to make a profit, there is no business reason to spend development time and money bloating up the system with feature frills.
non standard screws (Score:5, Insightful)
What really drives me nuts is non standard screws intended to prevent you from opening your device.
(Unless of course you have the special magic screw driver.)
I really hate these. I love opening things, to fix them or just for the fun of seeing how they're made.
I bought it, it belongs to me, don't prevent me from trying to have a look inside if I want to.
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Just recently I came home to find a cockroach in the LCD panel of my microwave. A true "That's disgusting, but how the hell did he get in there!??!!" moment. Well of course my first thought is to grab can of raid, a screwdriver and open the microwave up. As I get to screw number 3, I realize that this is not your typical screw. In fact, there is no way for my multi-headed screw driver to unscrew it! So now I have no way of being able to look inside my microwave and see if it's just one
optimisation is always the last step (Score:2)
With very few exceptions, these aren't factors that make it onto the feature list.
So far, this hasn't mattered too much as the performance of new PCs rises rapidly - what was a slow program on last year's box is fine on this year's. Great if you're
On the web: Pagination (Score:2)
I think a story or article should only be split into different pages when it is big enough to have different chapters. Since almost all news articles are way to short to have chapters, why try to split them up in an annoying way?
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Car locks (Score:3, Interesting)
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The idea is that its more secure this way.
Picture the scenario... "woman gets into car in dark parking lot... car automatically unlocks... stalker/weirdo/freak hinding behind the car climbs in on the passenger side when she unlocks the door..."
And countless variations on the theme. Rapists. Carjackings. Whatever.
How much validity you giv
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DING DING DING!!!! You are correct. My mom was talking about this very subject last week. Her Honda has door locks which you can unlock from the inside. You can unlock the driver or passenger door individually by hand or the driver can use the switch to unlock all the doors at once.
She mentioned that she is no longer able to lock/unlock just her driver door by using the lock. When it gets taken in for its yearly checkup, she wants the place to look at
Tool Batteries (Score:3, Interesting)
Half the time, I don't even need the power of the 18V drill, I just need a bit of Juice to turn a bunch of screws. Wouldn't it be slick to pop in 3 6v Batteries, and be able to toggle a switch to choose between connecting them in serial or parallel? IE, more power, or longer lasting battery?
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Deliberate (Score:5, Informative)
Most of these annoyances are very deliberate. HDMI is intended to be non-interoperable and failure-prone. OEM Windows preloads contain extra bloatware because bloatware makers paid to have their crap installed. Tools use nonstandard battery packs, in order to sell proprietary replacement packs.
These aren't engineering failures. They are just examples of products that are made to serve interests other than the user's.
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Annoying cars (Score:2)
I don't care much about fixing engines - they are so complex these days you're SOL if you don't have an ODBCII k
The obvoius counterpoint (Score:3, Insightful)
Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.'"
Since most Linux OSes are free, there's no business reason for them to deliver features people want (and hence are prepared to pay for).
And... (Score:2)
Failures of standartization (Score:2)
No, but wheels are almost unique to each model — replacing Geo Prizm with a Honda Fit, for example, forced us to replace our set of winter wheels/tires recently... While we have some decent standards already — the AC current, the bed-sizes, for example, too many things remain non-standardized. DC power is the most obvious example. Although Research-in-Motion and Nokia should be praised for trying to cut down on the number of differe
It's not the question about WHO but WHAT. (Score:2)
And I see that Mr Hyneman has a point here. Jamie and Adam seems to be two guys that just happened to get well-known. They didn't really plan on being world famous and I doubt that they make a lot of dough off their persons (with exception for the occasional exploding dough-can).
What we all know, but is pointed out by the article is that it's often not the engineers that does the stupid things it's the economy bean-counters that
Standards and poor design choices (Score:5, Informative)
1. Cordless tools and equipment--all with different kinds of battery packs and chargers.
2. Flashlights and other small electrical devices that run on exotic batteries.
3. Cellphones that all come with different chargers and power-supply units.
4. AV equipment that has different types of hookups and remote-control protocols.
And his other three points are all about bloat and poor design choices:
5. Computer operating systems loaded with stuff I don't want and will never use.
6. Automobiles with obnoxious electronics.
7. Cars designed to make it tough to do maintenance.
Overall he makes some pretty good points.
In response to his first three complaints, I don't think companies will ever give up their non-standard battery packs... they make too much money on replacement batteries.
As for complaint #4, I thought AV equipment was pretty well standardized already. All of my TV and AV equipment accept the same types of audio cables. I'd agree with his point about remotes though. I've never owned a "universal remote" that "just worked".
In complaint #5, Jamie is mainly complaining about the bloat in Windows (more specifically Vista). I think the problem is that Operating Systems like Windows have to be designed with a wide user base in mind, so they have to have features that only 10% of the users would use. It would be nice if Microsoft actually made a modular OS where I could uninstall everything that I don't use (Outlook and IE for example). I have to give Jamie props for advocating Linux in the article.
Here's a quote from complaint #5 which I totally agree with:
His main complaint in #6 is that he doesn't like cars that beep at him to buckle his seatbelt and he doesn't like cars that auto-lock the doors. Personally, I don't mind these features, but I can understand why someone might find them annoying. As for all the other electronics going in cars nowadays, I don't mind them. If you've ever driven in a BMW, you'd probably fall in love with all of the electronics. Whenever I drive in my toyota, I'm constantly adjusting the temperature as it's always fluctuating between too hot or too cold (I can never seem to find that comfort zone). But in a Beamer, I can set the temperature to 22C and forget about it. Some electronics I can live without, like those onboard navigation screens, but others I tend to enjoy.
And finally, complaint #7 is all about poor design choices (in cars). Here's his example of a bad design: "One late-model sedan I worked on required the removal of a front wheel, plus a bunch of other stuff, just to replace the battery". I'm not a mechanic, and I have little to no experience under the hood, but are a lot of cars really designed this poorly? I can't think of any car where I actually had to remove a tire just to change the battery (Does anyone know what car Jamie was talking about?).
Re:Standards and poor design choices (Score:5, Insightful)
Sort of.
It's more that Windows is designed with a wider base of user *experience* in mind -- they hand you everything and you use it. A la carte, the *nix way, is great if the user knows enough to go decide what's needed. My linux system can load drivers for stuff Windows has never heard of: Amiga file system management, USB-to-serial IC's. But 90% of the people who use computers will never need any of that, so the Windows system of one-package-to-rule-them-all, one-package-to-bind-them works great. But just try to get support or drivers working on Windows for any hardware that's not sold at Best Buy. (I bought a Philips webcam a while back. It works with Windows98. There is no other version of Windows that can work with it. But a tiny bit of tweaking and my linux systems, one from 9 years ago and one brand-new, could both handle it.)
>I'm not a mechanic, and I have little to no experience under the hood, but are a lot of cars really designed this poorly?
Other people have already talked about the specific case of the battery behind the wheel. Things I've seen on cars I've worked on: having to remove the wheel to change the oil filter, on a Saturn; having to remove part of the power steering booster to change the rearmost spark plug, on an Oldsmobile; and having to wrap the CV boots with plastic bags before removing the oil filter so it doesn't drip on them and dissolve the rubber seals, on a Subaru. I've been told that on some rear-engine Porsches you had to remove the engine to change the spark plugs, and on some '85-90 Corvettes you had to remove part of the intake manifold to change the spark plugs. On my dad's '64 Ford, there were no hydraulic lifters, so every 3000 miles or thereabouts, I had to relash the valves -- manually adjust for the wear in the valve train. I had to do that on my '84 Nissan, actually, but then all the clearances were quoted cold, so that wasn't too bad. On my '71 Datsun, they were quoted hot, so you'd run the engine, then quickly pull off the valve cover and start measuring clearances between really hot pieces of metal, trying to adjust them accurately. But the '64 Ford was the king of annoyance, because the adjustment was specified WHILE THE ENGINE WAS RUNNING. You want a bad time: try adjusting a nice hot threaded bolt with a locknut, while it's jerking through about 15 degrees of movement 400 times a minute, while hot oil is spraying out of the valve train lubrication lines, and you have to feed a feeler gauge between the bottom of the bolt and the top of the pushrod during the brief moment they're not in contact. Oh, and the cam was sufficiently aggressive that at idle the car was continuously backfiring through the carburetor so there were occasional blasts of flame from right in front of you.
Compared to that, what's a little hassle like removing a wheel to replace the battery? I was so glad to see that car go, even if it did have the hottest engine Detroit ever made.
Going to make some guesses here without RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
1. Electric mustache trimmers far more newfangled than the reliable steam-powered models.
2. Local beret dealer insists on selling them in outlandish, inefficient colors such as "blue" and "red" instead of the more streamlined "black" model.
3. Technological advances in promulgating human rights laws make it no longer possible to keep hyperactive co-host safely chained to a radiator in the basement between tapings.
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Well, if they ever get low on cash... (Score:5, Funny)
I can only imagine what that'd bring on eBay.
Re:Obligatory... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)
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My list of hot girls I know that are way hotter than Kari AND on national TV - 3. If PBS counts.
Being able to think over the hottness of girls I bot know and don't know, and compare the two - priceless.
And all this means, what, nothing? Yeah... I want an SLI rig so I can be less useless in BFwhatever. Earth Girls are plentiful and currently cheaper than a slammin gaming ri
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You could have saved us some reading time by leaving out the "who are as good..." part.
Re:Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)
Granted, she's not Catherine Deneuve, but hot body+cute face+understanding of physics and engineering is not average, not by a long shot. Either you spend too much time in your basement or you're banging Playboy models on a regular basis.
I'll leave it up to the reader to decide which is the most likely scenario
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No, but if Kari wants to do a lesbian sex scene with a young and still hot Susan Sarandon, it would go a long way to convincing me otherwise.
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Oh, and if you want to see the dumbest people online (even dumber than Youtube commentators), then look no further than the Mythbusters fansite. People are looking so hard for something "they screwed up" that most of the time they don't even seem to know what exactly the Mythb
Flamebait??? Give me a break. (Score:3, Insightful)
River, changed (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree. And I pine for the Firefly that could have been.
Check her out for her last 10 seconds on-screen in Serenity. For a season of episodes and 99% of the movie, she was a tortured, often dysfunctional character because of what was in her head. At the end of the movie, though, she had fulfilled her destiny (well, at least the short-term one) and all her demons were exci
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I'll tell you what, you can take a good look at Kari's ass by sticking your head up there, but wouldn't you rather take her word for it? Uh... no, I mean you can take a good look at a T-bone by sticking your head up a Kari's a**, but then... No, it has got to be your bull...
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1) If the ignorant masses complain in the wrong places, they'll get flamed.
2) More exposure to the ignorant masses might actually IMPROVE Ubuntu. Once we see what people actually want, someone can adapt the OS so that they can HAVE what they want (even if it is a point and click interface to 10 apps). With Windows, they just keep complaining and people make money charging them $5/minute to tell them to go buy a new computer to upgrade to the l