Comment by everdrive

Comment by everdrive 3 days ago

>Falling back to an attitude of not needing automation and instrumentation is a cope, and often a poor cope at that.

A lot of modern automation is not really automation. A washing machine is automation: it takes a task which would have wasted hours of your day and reduces it down to a few minutes. A lot of modern "automation" doesn't save you any actual time time, but just saves you from being attentive:

- Checking your tire pressure doesn't take much time, but TPMS is a privacy problem and an added maintenance cost that you cannot opt out of.

- A power rear lift gate actually takes _more_ time than just shutting it with your hands.

- Power windows don't go down any more quickly than power windows. The only only benefit here is that you can open all 4 windows simultaneously. However this is a luxury, not something which saves you time. You never _need_ all 4 windows down. So maybe people like it, but it's not like the washing machine that actually saves you labor.

- etc ....

People think that needed to do or attend to anything is wasting time, but often modern automation saves no time whatsoever, and has other downsides. (privacy, maintenance cost, vehicle weight, etc.)

baubino 3 days ago

As someone who grew up in the pre-power-window 1970s and 80s, they absolutely do save time. You have to remember that manual crank windows went along with a lack of air conditioning. Being able to quickly roll down the windows (especially all four at once) in a hot car mattered.

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toast0 2 days ago

My 2003 s-10 has AC and crank windows, my 2007 Ranger did too. Power windows sure are nice when you want to talk to someone out the passenger side and you don't have a passenger though. Or if you want a breeze regardless of AC.

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- mindslight 2 days ago
  
  > Power windows sure are nice when you want to talk to someone out the passenger side
  Presumably the fundamentalists think you just need to yell louder. With neo-luddite opposition like this, its no wonder the surveillance society is winning.
  
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  toast0 2 days ago
  
  I mean, I could always stick my torso out my window and talk over the cab, I guess.
  
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mindslight 3 days ago

It takes real time to get out a pressure gauge and check the pressure on each wheel, no? Furthermore, attention itself is a limited resource.

For example, power windows were always handy when getting on/off the highway and coming up to a toll booth where I'd have to give/take a ticket. It's much easier to hold a button (or even have a latching button) while spending my attention on actually driving.

I have one car with TPMS that's entirely done through the ABS controller measuring the relative diameters of the wheels. That's not a privacy or cost problem. Furthermore the privacy problem where wireless TPMS sensors are interrogatable is better framed as a security vulnerability in their design, rather than something intrinsic.

Weight is a red herring as I'd guess the fuel savings from having properly inflated tires outweighs the fuel spent on the extra mass.

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