Yes this is clearly an issue of where function over form would be superior to something sleek, elegant, and almost useless.
Even now, if I had a dime for every time at the office I’d heard “Try calling me back on the office phone … yeah, ok, that’s better”, I’d have a pretty solid stack of dimes. And this was with iPhones on a major carrier in a major metro area so it wasn’t a case of cans-n-twine infrastructure.
But of course, the engineers at Volvo, from a balmy and temperate clime, couldn’t possibly anticipate the absurdity of a door freezing shut. /s
In addition to it being almost impossible to buy a new TV that isn’t actively harvesting your data, they’re now making “smart” TVs that will insert their own banner ads into your programming.
I speak with no trace of hyperbole when I say that the people responsible for this need to be flayed alive in the public square.
Our new car (RAV4 hybrid) has a proximity key. My wife and I have a key fob each. I put it in our garage for her (at her request) as it is a bit of a tricky operation. I usually take my keys out to the car. Once or twice she has forgotten to remove her key fob. The car won’t let me lock it with a key fob still inside it. So the benefits of a key fob without the drawback of a physical key in a key barrel.
Apparently a physical key, in the usual location immediately to one side of the steering column, can cause injuries to the driver’s knee in the event of an accident. Saabs used to locate their ignition keys on the console for this reason. Just don’t lose a key fob! They are expensive to replace. (I guess this is a drawback.)
This topic was covered very well by Richard Farson. I am quoting some here :
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… iatrogenic, meaning “physician induced.” Examples are complications from surgery, side effects of drugs, infections that result from hospital stays. There are more than a thousand different diseases that would not exist if not for the practice of medicine and the existence of hospitals. Half the time any hospital staff is spent treating iatrogenic disease.”
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“Far from wiping out the market for fresh produce, as was feared, frozen vegetables whetted our appetite for fresh ones in countless new varieties. . Convenience foods fueled a renaissance in gourmet cooking. Fast food inspired a passion for leisurely dining.”
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The washing machine was touted to relieve housewives and give them a lot of hours back. But people started wearing clothes less number of times before washing them, thereby wiping off all advantages on saved hours.
Agreed.
My current 2021 Jeep Trailhawk has push button. I can’t even say how many times (many) I’ve parked, opened the door and realized it was still running. I could’ve sworn I had pushed the button to shut it down.
My car (2019 Mazda) has the push button, and it will beep incessantly and flash the “key” icon on the dash if the engine is running but the key isn’t there. I’m surprised other cars with push button ignition apparently don’t do that.
^^My Jeep has a fob. It will let me know if I get out and walk way). But not just opening the door. I could’ve sworn my previous Jeep did.
I misunderstood before. I thought you actually were getting out and walking away. Although I will point out that what you’re doing is functionally the same as forgetting to take the key out of the ignition before you open the door. I’m not sure how having the key physically in the ignition lock solves that problem. Actually it kind of makes things worse, because there’s a risk you’ll lock it in the car, which you won’t do if it’s just a fob in your pocket.
I’m pretty sure my car makes the “door chime” sound if you open the door with the engine running, which admittedly is much milder than the “Hey idiot, you left me running” alarm it makes it you walk away.
Yeah, but I have many CDs that have rotted (the aluminized coating is flaking off). So, my CDs from the nineties won’t play, but my great grandfather’s 78 rpm records do!
All else being equal, a CD has superior sound quality vs. MP3.
Interesting. I had heard rumors almost as far back as the beginnings of CDs being sold that the plastic enclosing the aluminum was not perfectly air-proof over time and that the shiny mirror-like aluminum surface on which the 0s and 1s were encoded would oxidize in, I think it was estimated, a decade or so. I started buying CDs in around 1989 I think- I should dig out and try playing a couple of the first ones I bought.
I got CD’s from 1986 that still play. Perhaps because I rarely kept them in the car, but carried them into work and home with me.
My 2019 Subaru will not let me unlock it from outside if my wife has locked it from inside using the switch on the door. I can see that as a possible safety feature if you’re trying to keep an intruder with the fob outside, but it’s a safety hazard if she were incapacitated. Not sure if it’s also true if she did not have her fob in here purse though.
Jumping back from the 20th/21st centuries a bit, the development of movable-type printing in the 15th century was INCREDIBLY limiting in terms of the graphical/notational/visual variety of content that was taken for granted in hand-copied manuscripts.
Anything you wanted to print either had to have the appropriate characters cast in a metal typefont, or had to be added to printed text in the form of separate pages of engravings, woodcuts etc., or laboriously embellished by hand in prepared blank spaces within every one of the printed copies.
Yeah, it was great for booksellers to be able to produce and sell many more copies of a given typeset work at lower cost. But the loss of the effectively infinite graphical flexibility of hand copying with pen and ink was a downside.
Subsequent versions of the Windows operating system have lost many useful features.
Are you comparing cars that are reasonably similar in terms of weight and engine displacement?
My first car was an early '80s Oldsmobile. It had a gasoline 3.8L V6 with 110 horsepower, weighed 3400 pounds, and got maybe 20 MPG while doing 60 MPH on the highway.
My current car is a 2016 Infiniti. It’s got a 3.7L gasoline V6 with 330 horsepower, weighs about 3800 pounds, and gets about 27 MPG while doing 80 MPH on the highway.
Diesel-powered vehicles certainly don’t get the fuel economy they used to. Emissions regs have tightened up considerably since the late '90s, and one way diesel engine manufacturers are meeting the new regs is with delayed fuel injection, which results in lower combustion temperatures and less NOx formation, but also results in lower fuel economy. A late '90s diesel-powered VW Jetta could get 44 MPG on the highway, whereas the 2014 model can only get 39 highway MPG.
In all fairness the late 2000s were kind of a low point for fuel economy, at least in terms of cars sold in the US. Cars were getting heavier due to stricter safety requirements, but there were no real incentives for automakers to improve fuel economy, and people didn’t care because gas was still fairly cheap. I do remember complaints that the then new 2009 Corolla got worse mileage than its predecessors.
Brand new cars do get better mileage than 2000s era cars, in part thanks to new standards instituted by the Obama administration (which Trump then tried to roll back). Turbo four cylinders are common now in cars that would have had a V-6 back then. And pretty much every one uses either CVTs or duel-clutch automatic transmissions, which get better mileage than the old four speed torque converter automatics.
Computer mice that have lost the scroll wheel in favour of touch sensitive panels (like the Apple “magic” mouse).