this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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Great channel. Funnily enough, everyone I know that watches his videos is a car enthusiast.
I don’t hate cars, but the ones I tend to appreciate have less silicon in them than pixie dust.
It’s odd -- I love working with high-end IT stuff as my day job, but I hate computerized vehicles.
The reason we hate computerized vehicles is because the implementations are horrible compared to what we imagined when we were kids.
In theory, a computerized car should be amazing! In practice, it's an amalgamation of awful security, DRM bullshit and thoughtless UIs.
Same. I can only tolerate my car because they made a package without the tech, and it has physical buttons for the important stuff.
Working in computer science has made me a luddite. I love computers, but not when normal objects are computerized.
I can’t understand why certain things are considered in any way “better” than old tech.
Tachometers and speedometers, for example. These used to be plain rotating wires, hooked (respectively) up to the engine prior to the transmission, or to the driveshaft. Aside from the step-down gears (for the instrument cluster dials), that’s all what they were. So if your tach or sped no longer worked, you knew that in 99% of the cases it was a broken cable, and that’s invariably all that it was. You replaced that for a dollar or five, and you were on your way.
Now with electronics, the problem scope of a non-functional tach or sped has expanded to thousands of potential points of failure and potentially equally as much in costs in order to effectively repair.
This doesn’t sound “better” in any shape or form. It just sounds like more ka-ching for the auto companies, as well as a better way to monetize your behavioural use of the vehicle through its computerized Black Box that has an always-on cellular connection to the manufacturer’s mothership.
It's better for the manufacturer because it's cheap, sadly. A screen is way cheaper than dials these days. I don't know why luxury cars got them first though. Digital dashboards look cheap as fuck
What car do you own?
2015 Q50. It was the last year before a lot of tech stuff got rolled into the base package
I had a 2017-era car and I regret selling it a year ago.
Yeah that era was great because you got aux, Bluetooth, and a touch screen, but all the important stuff still had physical buttons and the car didn't come with internet by default