I've done price comparisons and CVS is hands down the worst price for anything.
The only reason you go to CVS, is if you have 0 other options.
While I blame the various medical cartels for making healthcare unaffordable by bribing (Lobbying) hundreds of millions of dollars to politicians- can the customer be blamed for negligence?
Reminds me of the Coronavirus lockdown. Save 0.5% of the sickest/old/obese people, cause the 99.5% to develop drug addictions, suicide, riot, undergo domestic abuse, disrupt supply chain, shortages, etc...
Side note, years ago I organized decades of hard drives, this found clips of my baby siblings playing with microphones and old video games.
I went through literally every folder. Took probably 20 hours.
Wondering if I could simplify this with python. Eliminating generic program files, but keeping all user data. The goal wouldn't be perfection but to take that 20 hours and turn it into 5 hours.
This has been one of the chief complaints for GDPR, right? While GDPR provides consumer data protection, it also creates regulatory and compliance barriers for new competition entering those markets, with heavy penalties.
> Btw if you consider that, there are wars over which JavaScript framework.
None. Simple as that. At least for something like the Crew Dragon control panels, any kind of JS framework would add unnecessary bloat for very little use, because they were all designed with a very different goal, definitely not to write the UI portion of a C++ application that controls a spaceship.
Just stick to vanilla JS, simple HTML and well-written CSS and circumvent the framework wars altogether.
They all still compile to the same stack, so no problem. I don’t have to throw away my working jquery/angularjs/scriptaculos/dojo/react/ code just because angular.io is pretty cool.
As someone that works in Auto on buttons and works with the head unit team, you are incorrect.
The benchmarking shows nearly every company is moving to screens. Sure you might have a few models that remove the screen, but these are cheap cars with limited features.
You literally can't have a button for every car feature.
And if your car doesn't have all the features, you won't sell well.
And if you disagree with all of this, you probably aren't the type of person to drop 40k-50k on a new car. You'd be happy with a 2014 car for 10k.
That looks like an excellent argument for stronger safety regulations. It is now illegal to drive any vehicle on public roads that does not meet the following safety standards: X, Y, Z. There you go, market for idiots who like flashy gadgets over safe vehicle controls eliminated. We did it with drink driving. We did it with driving on phones (though both the laws and the enforcement are still far from ideal on this one). We can do it with obviously dumb ideas for vehicle controls where there is evidence of severe safety problems too.
The Navy went big in touch screens and is rolling that back. Mazda, by no means a luxury brand, is abandoning touch screens. I think touch screens will stick around for tasks that aren’t routinely done while driving, but there will be a massive correction away from touchscreen as the only interface to the car.
> The benchmarking shows nearly every company is moving to screens.
Benchmarking? Really.
> Sure you might have a few models that remove the screen
Mazda is removing or de-emphasizing them across their product line if I understood correctly.
> You literally can't have a button for every car feature.
Yes, true, very very true. Also irrelevant. The point is that features like:
- climate control
- stereo volume (and other radio controls)
- defrost
- etc
should be physical buttons because drivers use them a lot and should not have to take their eyes off the road to use them and should NEVER have to their eyes off the road to see if their inputs took (touch/display latency sucks).
> And if your car doesn't have all the features, you won't sell well.
The features that must have physical input methods, must have them, and the others can be touch screens if you really like.
Also, fewer features is kinda fine, really, if it makes the roads safer.
> And if you disagree with all of this, you probably aren't the type of person to drop 40k-50k on a new car. You'd be happy with a 2014 car for 10k.
I.e., I must be cheap. Or maybe I would be happy with older cars (or newer Mazdas) precisely because they have these physical inputs / lack those dangerous touchscreens that I detest.
More and bigger screens are certainly the way of the future for most cars/SUVs, but I'd advocate strongly for a large set of ergonomic, reassignable hard controls. The best thing about the Tesla Model 3 controls is the configurable control gadget on the steering wheel (though I wish they'd used better materials -- feels absurdly cheap in a $50k car).
> The benchmarking shows nearly every company is moving to screens
You're confusing a benchmark with... something else. And I really dislike my new-ish MP3 player with it's damn screen that I have to keep looking at to operate, to do anything.
> And if your car doesn't have all the features
My MP3 player has a ton of features and I don't need 90% of them. I want it to do one job well - play my music and a few other basic controls, just like my old, physically-operated MP3 player did. I don't want awesome UX/UI bullshit to get in the way, I just want it to do its job.
While your comment is valid to the the person you responded to, consider:
My older car with no touch screen has a custom stereo installed - everything with physical buttons. And it can do more than my other car with a touchscreen. Its Bluetooth capabilities are superior. I can set it not to auto-play, etc.
Yes, no need to go old school. But no, you don't need a touchscreen to get a radio/stereo with better features.
That is my opinion which is why I kept on saying "I". I see nothing wrong at all with 'old-school'. There are too many self proclaimed UI/UX "experts" who keep screwing things up for people (edit: I'll restate that: fucking over their users). I only want what works.
> The vast majority of customers do not want something that basic.
And you accuse me of 'opinion'. Well, provide evidence of this claim.
This. There will always be a niche of people who want barebones single-purpose old-school experience out of any given device.
Goes for literally anything, from cars to phones to music equipment. I definitely fall into this category for some of the things myself. However, it is important to remember that this is not representative at all of what the majority prefers.
This is a better post than its parent, and in some cases, sure I agree. I can't argue with someone who wants the new & shiny, if it works for them, great. But it's being pushed on us so such luddites as myself have no choice any more - it's all touchscreens now. It's become marketing driven. The choice is gone.
> this is not representative at all of what the majority prefers
I was very careful to not to project my desires on others in my original post, but you're telling me about what "majority prefers". So back this up. I don't think you can.
>you're telling me about what "majority prefers". So back this up.
Do you see dedicated single-purpose barebones MP3 players having a high demand? Or do people just use their smartphones for that purpose? When you walk into a room and ask people if they would find an MP3 player device useful and would like to get one, what answer do you expect to hear?
Also, try asking the same question from people about smartphones vs. single-purpose cellphones. Yes, there is obviously a niche of people who want to "disconnect" and not have to deal with smartphones. But they are in a tiny minority.
While market isn't a perfect representation of what people want, it is a great proxy, in a lot of cases. And for this situation specifically, it looks like the market has clearly expressed what consumers want.
I asked you to back this up with actual figures. Please do so. Now...
> Do you see dedicated single-purpose barebones MP3 players having a high demand?
I can't buy them. When I looked for a new one, there was none available I could find. I did ring the companies too. There's no choice so actual demand is difficult to ascertain.
Smartphones... OK, that's a good point.
> what answer do you expect to hear?
Irrelevant - give me figures, not asking what I expect to get. Facts please. And if you read the comments here, there's quite a few expressing preference for physical controls.
> But they [non-smartphone users] are in a tiny minority.
A minority or a tiny minority? Give me figures please. Don't just talk at me, throwing words around. Facts please. And BTW I'm one of these minorities. FYI.
> it looks like the market has clearly expressed what consumers want
The fact that you called up a bunch of companies, and none of them were producing dedicated barebones MP3 players, kind of speaks for itself. If there was a significant demand, why wouldn't they jump on this easy money-making opportunity, given that they would have pretty much no competitors?
>give me figures, not asking what I expect to get.
I don't have numbers, and neither do you. In the absence of actual numbers, anecdotal evidence is the second best thing. Do you have anecdotal evidence of talking to an average person and asking whether they would be willing to pay for a dedicated MP3 player? I do, which is why I asked you to imagine how that scenario would play out in real life.
If your scenario played out the opposite of mine, then we would be at a stall, as anecdotal evidence is nothing against opposing anecdotal evidence, only factual numeric evidence can beat anecdotal evidence. But if it played out the same, I feel like it would only act in support of my hypothesis.
I can also bring out hard factual numbers for the sales numbers of dedicated MP3 players going down as smartphone proliferation increased, if you want, but you probably already know how those numbers look.
"It is fascinating just how poorly modern touch interfaces do compared to older vehicles" with a response of
"I can't figure out how to turn the HVAC system on in a newish car"
This proves that the market is demanding worse interfaces, otherwise why would people have to deal with them?. That's how your argument goes, and it's bunk. Remember the cries of pain over windows 8? That's because people liked pain. The market spoke, right?
> I don't have numbers, and neither do you.
Then again I only spoke for myself. Whereas you "...this is not representative at all of what the majority prefers" & "it looks like the market has clearly expressed what consumers want" believe you can speak for others. Nope. Facts please.
> I can also bring out hard factual numbers for the sales numbers of dedicated MP3 players going down as smartphone proliferation increased, if you want, but you probably already know how those numbers look.
Irrelevant. I spoke about dedicated MP3 players, and if you'd bothered to read what I said, I actually said yours was a good point. Still, dedicated MP3 players have a market because they are still being sold - https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3... So a market for them still exists. It's not about smartphones vs dedicated MP3 players, this is about interfaces and choice.
>"I can't figure out how to turn the HVAC system on in a newish car"
That says nothing about touchscreen interfaces themselves, it says about their poor implementation in certain cars. Just like touchscreen interfaces on phones, they were all various degrees of trash for daily usage, until iPhone came out with touchscreen-oriented UI and lead by example of what touchscreen-oriented UIs for phones are supposed to be, as opposed to just regular phone UI with touchscreen functionality bolted on.
A similar thing can be observed in cars. I had so many hellscape-ish experiences with touchscreens in cars, I can rant about those for days. But then I had an opportunity to extensively test its implementation in Tesla cars, and it was extremely pleasant.
Not that your criticism of touchscreens in modern cars is invalid, it totally is valid. Touchscreen interface implementation in modern cars, on average, is totally inferior to the older physical control interface implementation. Which makes sense, as we had over half a century to perfect that.
However, as demonstrated by the Tesla interface I experienced (hybrid touchscreen+physical controls on the steering wheel), those issues are not inherent to all touchscreen interfaces. The other manufacturers just need to catch up (for some of them, I can already seem them being very close). You cannot just bolt a touchscreen onto the interface designed with physical controls in mind and call it a day. Because that's pretty much why those touchscreen interfaces in most modern cars are awful to use.
I'm not down on touchscreens, just when they're misapplied, as you've indicated. And maybe markets indeed don't always deliver what the user wants, at least not at first. I think we've reached some agreement here.
It might happen when statistics actually show cars with touchscreens are measurably less safe.
It'd be even safer if we removed the radio all together, and banned any physical controls that aren't on the steering wheel (to ensure you don't have to take your hand off the wheel to use them).
Why do we only care about public safety in one circumstance but not the other?
>Why do we only care about public safety in one circumstance but not the other?
Outside of armchair theorists online, I'm not convinced anyone in charge of car design actually cares about car safety at all.
Car accidents are the leading cause of death for people age 15-29 and the second leading cause of death for people age 5-14. Nearly 3,300 people die every day in car accidents, and double that number are permanently disabled.
If people actually cared about car safety, it feels like these numbers would have gone down in the last 30 years. They haven't. [1]
They probably have gone down per capita, right? We just have a lot more people than we did 30 years ago. A car built today is certainly safer than one from 30 years ago.
My hope is that driverless cars end up solving this faster than we otherwise could politically, but obviously that may be a bit ambitious.
Not for me. I'm quite content setting a target temperature and leaving the rest on "auto", although I know for many drivers that's not the case. And obviously it's still in my interests that other drivers not be distracted.
But those, too, could be controlled by physical buttons on the steering wheel and/or voice commands.
And some of us would have done. Trying to write anything longer than a brief text message or Tweet using any modern touchscreen phone is excruciating. Swipe-style keyboards have made entering text tolerable, but correcting the mis-reads or even the most basic editing takes orders of magnitude longer than it needs to. Admittedly, modern phones do provide a neat demonstration of various technologies designed to correct the errors caused by an otherwise slow and inaccurate input device.
Because Europe and Japan also had this idea how touch screen is cool, new and the future. 2016-2018 were the blunder years with everything being touch. And soon people realized that touch, no surprise, is shit. So for most common operations makers have added buttons back - climate and audio controls.
For never used settings - like should interior lights come up when you open the door, beep sound loudness, interior light brightness, etc - yea, touch screen is good. For stuff that you actually use - no.
It blows my mind people think touch screens are good. If they are so good, why don't we use touch inputs for blinker signals behind steering wheel? For steering itself? Swipe left to go left. Why no touch input for shift paddles? Hell, why I never saw anyone using touch screen keyboard instead of a physical one? Silicon valley devs could easily afford one and to them touch is superior to physical buttons. Nope, 1970s or w/e physical keyboards for every computer, it's like there's a bubble somewhere where "new = always good and old = always bad".
I found it quite difficult to outsource Engineering work to Engineers in another country.
It might be a cultural thing, but issues I've ran into- Slow/low prioritization, no movement unless you follow up often, lack of experience.
Don't get me wrong, I can be lazy too. But when things are outsourced it's really hard to keep positive relations and get stuff done on time with high quality.
In my experience the core of the problem, regardless of outsourcing, cultural issues or other considerations, is the good old "if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys". Good software engineers are highly coveted wherever they are. If you attempt to outsource work to a country with much lower wages in order to save money you're not going to get the local rockstars working for you.
Those outsourced teams are also aware of their status as "disposable cheap workforce" and are not super invested in the project. They have very little chance of career growth within the company since their whole reason to be here is to be cheap. They do the bare minimum to meet the objectives and nothing more, and in their place I'd probably do the exact same thing.
I've experienced those exact problems with a project that was outsourced to a company 20km away. I'm sure there's lots of success stories, but outsourcing isn't easy even when culture and face-to-face meetings aren't an issue. It's very easy to slip into apathy or an us-vs-them mentality.
> restaurant food is 7 to 20x more expensive than home cooked
I suspect Efficiency is Everything is measuring a very different thing. They seem to focus on calories per dollar, which is not how restaurants or home cooks typically think.
The rule of thumb used in the restaurant industry is 30/30/30/10. 30% for food, labour, rent, and 10% margin. Anecdotally, for dinner I spend about £3 a meal to cook at home, and could probably buy that meal out for £8-12.
As Efficiency is Everything says, you can live on $1.50 a day, but it requires using only a very limited subset of ingredients and allows little room for preference. For some people this makes no difference, for most it's a huge handicap, which is why it's limited to the min-maxing fringes.
I'm not sure laziness is the main factor here though. I suppose it depends where you are ordering from, but I enjoy picking up from restaurants still largely because I enjoy the food and would not be able to recreate it. In some cases it introduces me to new flavor combos that I wouldn't have tried otherwise and maybe will eventually make its way into my cooking. Hell, I even just occasionally crave McDonalds. If I were feeling lazy I would have Soylent or throw together a sandwich with whatever is in the house, it feels like more effort to place the McD order than do that.
Food is a large source of enjoyment for a lot of people, even removing the social benefits of in-person restaurants, I don't think it is a waste. Although certainly many restaurant owners would benefit from some business training.
I also think you'll find you could say the same thing about a lot of life chores- people pay other people to sew? People pay other people to mow their lawn? People pay other people to trim their hair? And so on. A lot of these things could be done sufficiently yourself, but 1) they will generally be done better by the professional and 2) as these things pile up the total time spent will become a legitimate burden.
I found it interesting to read about the daily schedules of housewives back in the 50s or so, some of their tasks could be automated now or would be considered unnecessary, but even adjusting to be a bit more modern it sounded like a difficult full time job. And there are increasingly less people "employed" in this sector. So I don't know why I see so many objections to outsourcing something like cooking (not even all the time).
The only reason you go to CVS, is if you have 0 other options.
While I blame the various medical cartels for making healthcare unaffordable by bribing (Lobbying) hundreds of millions of dollars to politicians- can the customer be blamed for negligence?