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pdx.social is a community for the Portland, Oregon, USA region. 🌲 Established April 6th, 2017 🌲

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Miakoda

@weilawei@mastodon.online @angelastella This is one of the top reasons I hate new cars

@hellomiakoda @weilawei

I haven't driven a car in my whole life and I hate every little piece of electronics they've grafted into them.

THIS is a car for me:

testdelayer.com.ar/citroen3cv.

It had an AM radio. That's all. And lights, of course, controlled mechanically.

www.testdelayer.com.arCitroën 3 CVRoad Test - Prueba del Citroen 3 CV. Caracteristicas tecnicas. Revista Corsa

@hellomiakoda @weilawei @angelastella I deeply dislike new appliances with touchscreens that sing at me. Especially since appliances now only last a few years instead of a few decades. I refuse to buy a vehicle with touchscreens, I'm driving a 2012 vehicle with knobs. The giant tablet displays on newer vehicles is so distracting and I've wondered if that's one reason people have become such unsafe drivers.

@hellomiakoda @weilawei @angelastella oh and speaking of modern appliances, just discovered my Cuisinart coffee maker that's less than two years old has stopped working. Great.

@Jennifer @hellomiakoda @weilawei

Rip off the microcontroller.

(I know this is not realistic advice, not even for a rage-driven electronics nerd like me. But "throw it away" is not my thing.)

@Jennifer @hellomiakoda @weilawei

They didn't need that, they had so-called smartphones already.

(Yes, I'm drawing a sharp distinction here. Fuck you if you don't agree. Phones are for talking.)

@Jennifer @hellomiakoda @weilawei @angelastella
Until recently I was driving a 2002-vintage car. All buttons of course & with a cassette player and push-button radio. My 'new' used 2019-vintage car is mostly buttons, but has a touch-screen infotainment panel. I don't use it because it's incredibly distracting, but also barely works. Now I have no way to play music in the car. Progress, eh?

@angelastella @Jennifer @hellomiakoda @weilawei
I still have my cassettes and a Walkman. Maybe there's a way to plug it in to a portable speaker.

@henstridge @Jennifer @hellomiakoda @weilawei

I'm too drunk right now to suggest a solution, but I'm positive it's there. We have a lot of retrotech lunatics here.

@angelastella @Jennifer @hellomiakoda @weilawei When it comes to Touch Screens in cars, Consumer Technologists should really heed the advice "Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should"

@henstridge @Jennifer @hellomiakoda @weilawei

That's solid advice in general for production. R&D, whole another thing.

@angelastella @Jennifer @hellomiakoda @weilawei Also applies to cameras: A button or dial for every important function, and only one function for every button or dial. Muscle-memory takes care of the rest. I want to look at what I'm photographing, not at a menu

@angelastella @Jennifer @hellomiakoda @weilawei Yes, tempting. I still have an Olympus OM-1n and (my favourite) an OM-4Ti. Basically, just three controls and a button-battery that lasted years. It was even useable without the battery.

@angelastella @Jennifer @hellomiakoda @weilawei Just for metering on the OM-1n. On the OM-4Ti it also controlled auto-exposure, but it was possible to use the camera in fully mechanical mode with a constant shutter speed of 1/125