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cellioNo, not hardware.
I had to reboot my car this morning. I still don't know what happened.
My car, like almost every car built in the last N years, has a remote control. There are buttons for "lock" and "unlock"; for the latter, press once to affect the driver's door only and twice to affect all doors. (A single press of "lock" affects all doors.) The car does not appear to preserve state for any significant length of time; I have not conducted experiments yet to determine the timeout between presses of "unlock".
This morning I needed to get something out from the passenger's side, so I pressed twice, retrieved the item, and a few minutes later got into the car and drove off.
Now when you lock the car using the remote control, the car's alarm system is supposed to automatically activate. You know that this has happened because of a little light that comes on. There is no documented way to deactivate the alarm.
When I got to work and locked the car, the light didn't come on. I pressed the lock button again, thinking my car was somehow weirdly stateful after all; no change. I unlocked and relocked; no change. Eventually I unlocked the car, got in, put the fancy electronic key into the ignition, removed it, got out, and locked. That time it worked.
I still have no idea what happened. This is not covered in the manual, nor did the UI provide sufficient hints.
I had to reboot my car this morning. I still don't know what happened.
My car, like almost every car built in the last N years, has a remote control. There are buttons for "lock" and "unlock"; for the latter, press once to affect the driver's door only and twice to affect all doors. (A single press of "lock" affects all doors.) The car does not appear to preserve state for any significant length of time; I have not conducted experiments yet to determine the timeout between presses of "unlock".
This morning I needed to get something out from the passenger's side, so I pressed twice, retrieved the item, and a few minutes later got into the car and drove off.
Now when you lock the car using the remote control, the car's alarm system is supposed to automatically activate. You know that this has happened because of a little light that comes on. There is no documented way to deactivate the alarm.
When I got to work and locked the car, the light didn't come on. I pressed the lock button again, thinking my car was somehow weirdly stateful after all; no change. I unlocked and relocked; no change. Eventually I unlocked the car, got in, put the fancy electronic key into the ignition, removed it, got out, and locked. That time it worked.
I still have no idea what happened. This is not covered in the manual, nor did the UI provide sufficient hints.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-26 07:54 am (UTC)On my car this timeout is relatively short (< 10 secs). Also you may have noticed that if you press unlock and then don't open a door, the car will relock itself after a minute or so.
I'm not so much disturbed by the idea of people learning to put up with flawed design-- as someone else observed, rebooting your PC or thwacking the toaster on the side to unstick it aren't all that different in concept. What I do find disturbing is the move towards everything being disposable. If your printer cost $40, why go to the trouble of repairing it? Just toss it and buy another. A friend went looking for a replacement mop sponge, and found that it was actually cheaper to buy a whole new mop than to get the replacement sponge. As annoying as it is to be forced into finding workarounds for faulty design, I'm not sure that a culture that encourages people to just give up and buy anew when their widget breaks down is really an improvement.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-26 08:25 am (UTC)I've noticed that. They specifically document this behavior with respect to the hatch, but not generally. I have many complaints against the documentation, actually, but it's not something I'll need to refer to frequently so that's ok.
Disposables: I also find this frustrating. I get odd looks from jewelers when replacing watch batteries that cost almost as much as the watch, and as you've pointed out, sometimes reuse actually costs more. (I've had the mop-head experience too.) And the landfills get bigger and bigger... not a good thing to be teaching people.
Mind, I'm not perfect by any means; I use my share of disposables and decide to replace rather than repair sometimes. I try to be good but don't always succeed; such is life. I like to think that if I had kids I'd be more careful because of the message I'd be sending, but who knows if I actually would? (I don't plan to conduct the experiment.)