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Comment Re:How do components survive? (Score 1) 241

A trivial answer is to use military grade components, which have a much wider operational temperature range.

One thing I noticed in 110 degree Texas heat, is that my phone will fail (It'll throw a "too hot" message and shut down) whereas all the electronics in the car keep functioning. Clearly a different grade of components are being used.

Comment Re:Am I sure? (Score 1) 241

Hell, no. A week or two ago, we were coming back at night, and my wife, in the navigator seat, hit the map... and I suddenly have this REALLY BRIGHT SCREEN in the middle of my dash, and it's dark out - I was havintg trouble seeing the road.

And, of course, I looked around, and there's NO WAY to stop "Your Sirius Trial Has Started" *every* time I turn on the engine. And there was the story on /. the other week about BMW showing ADS (do not own a BMW)...

"Spider man, spider man"...

(Turns into used car lot) Hey salesguy, can I trade in this brand new BMW for a car that doesn't play commercials?

Comment touch screens are a distraction (Score 1) 241

I think one thing that Star Trek (TNG and later) got wrong is the reliance on touch screens. They're visual rather than tactile and tend to draw your attention from the things that are happening around you, like driving a starship.

Driving a car requires one's full attention. Even in a straight line road with no traffic, emergencies happen, like a deer leaping out into your path. (Ahem. Ask me how I know.) Focusing on a big ol' touch screen low and off to the side is a really good way to miss something critical happening on the road.

I replaced the stock radio in the truck with one that, besides the things I bought it for, would also do most of the other operations on the dash in a series of menus that you had to swipe back and forth to access. Fortunately, its presence doesn't disable the hand controls, it just give you a colorful gui to use if you want.

Physical controls, especially if they're planned out correctly, can be found by feel. So for instance, you can turn down the fan or adjust the volume (my truck has an old fashioned knob) without having to take your eyes off the road.

Parenthetically, I suspect that the reason the controls were odd shapes in TOS was precisely for this reason -- someone figured that an operator may need to find controls by feel, especially in conditions where sight is questionable. (Injuries, or smoke.) This also might be the reason for all the odd sounds on the bridge. They're aural indications that certain actions have been taken.

Doing everything from a great big touch screen seems cool but for a lone driver it's a disaster waiting to happen. One needs a copilot to do anything intricate.

My particular Passenger Princess never learned the touch screen interface and has no intention of learning it. If she wants the air conditioning adjusted, she complains about it and then waits for me to fix it.

So no I do not want a car with a giant touch screen. I also don't want to have to move through menus to do common tasks. No thanks.

Comment Not sure I understand (Score 3, Interesting) 91

You don't have to buy a particular phone, you can buy parts NOW to repair your phone.

I ran over the Galaxy 10+ with the truck. Took it to a third party, had the screen replaced for $90 and when I discovered the finger sensor no longer worked, brought it back and had the sensor replaced for cost of parts. (He regretted not doing both at the same time and gave me a break on labor.)

Now that I write that, I have a dim memory of Apple using some kind of DRM on their parts that prevents third parties from replacing the screen. So maybe they do have a point, if you have an Apple phone. The only one I ever used was the one issued to me by an employer.

The point being, anyone adept with tools can already replace the parts on existing phones, or if they're not adept, hire it out to a knowledgeable third party. And if it violates the warranty, so what? If the warranty was still in effect, you'd use that. If you're using a third party, the warranty has run out pretty much by definition.

Screens are commodity items.

Comment a solution looking for a problem (Score 1) 42

I don't mean that in a demeaning way. Z80 assembly language was my first professional programming job and I spent some years being the department SME. I'm very interested in this, but I don't currently have a use case. In the present time, where we have 64 bit Raspberry Pis, I'm sad to say that I'm not sure there is one.

I'd love to be wrong about this.

Comment Re:Shrug. My machine won't run 11. (Score 1) 106

Unfortunately, the software I need to be able to run makes heavy use of the GPU. I don't think Windows VMs have that level of compatibility yet.

I think the hot setup is to run it in an AWS instance. That way I could have access to the software from pretty much anywhere. But I don't expect that to work either.

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