Who said physical buttons cannot be mixed with voice input? Most physical buttons these days are just an interface to the CAN bus, where the function is performed (in software) in the BCM and can easily interface with the voice module.
"Improved" is an interesting term. How much improvement can you make to climate control buttons? Their function in most vehicles has not changed in 30 years and are largely the same aside from styling.
I feel like we just had this conversation two days ago, with the Amazon driver that has to use a touchscreen to open the cargo door in his new EV delivery van. Another ridiculous design courtesy of SV. Maybe the Juicero engineers found a new life at the EV manufacturers.
The article is about authenticating to a Wi-Fi captive portal. So not only is a VPN irrelevant, as everyone has already pointed out and you continue to ignore, it wouldn't even work.
It's pretty clear whoever designed this toy has never driven an actual cargo van or done any blue collar work in their life. That Tesla-style touchscreen for starters. I give it 3-6 weeks before it's shattered or fails. The look on the guy's face was priceless when he couldn't open the cargo door without walking over to the touchscreen and tapping an icon. As opposed to having a simple button on the door itself. Many late model cargo vans do share crappy infotainment systems with their passenger counterparts, but almost never use them for core or upfitter functions, just the radio.
Have you ever seen the inside of a Ford Transit van? They're remarkably pedestrian. Or a UPS truck, made from steel and brawn and not much else. These things need to be engineered to take a beating. Yet this has push-button start with a fob. (Keys are a much better choice for fleet vehicles, if not only for key management, they withstand abuse in the field much better than fobs, which are expensive and difficult to replace.)
What they should have installed instead is a cup holder for the sports drink urine bottle. Which you keep next to the cigarettes and burrito wrappers, to the left of the shitty basic FM radio with real knobs.
How are you supposed to use a touchscreen for basic functions whilst wearing gloves? This thing was designed by office-dwellers.
All they need is for Ford or Benz to turn their bare bones cargo vans electric and they'll be turning these Rivians into beer cans.
Whoever decided to introduce touchscreens inside cars and vehicles should be chastised. Touchscreens inside a vehicle are akin to texting while driving for me.
Yep. I've passed on this generation of fully electric vehicles because none of them offer physical buttons to operate the climate control.
Automatic climate controls don't cut it--change directions such that the sun starts beating down on me and I'm going to need to turn up the fans beyond what automated systems would choose. Test driving the Tesla Model S, on two separate occasions while attempting to set the climate controls I almost got into a wreck--it not only is only on the touchscreen, but also buried under something like 5 menus. WTF? Volvo XC-40 and Mustang also have no climate control buttons. In my area, all the other electric cars have a waiting list longer than a year. I want to buy electric, but safety is paramount--driving a car is far and away the most dangerous thing I do on a daily basis and I'd like it to be as safe as possible. I ended up with a Subaru this time.
Hopefully someone will make an electric car with physical buttons for the climate controls.
You'll notice the Ford Transit EV still retains the traditional mechanical key, and also features a simple locking glove box that works off the same key.
But why do that when you could make the glove box electronically locking via bluetooth proximity over the infotainment.
People have deluded themselves into believing that EV's must be packed with superfluous electronics and other futuristic garbage, whilst it's just the drivetrain that's different.
Yeah, they're not targeting your use case. The vast majority of these vans, I suspect, are used for urban delivery or trades roles, where 200km is fine. 900km range vans are perfectly possible, but will be very expensive and most van users won't need them.
EDIT: Also, in many countries you can drive a van with a normal driver's license provided it's under, usually, 3.5 tonnes. Once you go over that you need a special license. 900kms worth of battery might make it difficult to fit a reasonable payload under the legal limit.
If you can charge at home/base then, really, you only care about the range being sufficient for one day. I think 200km is enough for many, if not most, use cases.
Most of the Transits I see (in the UK) are not used to drive long distances in a day but to carry stuff around. Think electricians, plumbers, all those trades.
Even an Amazon delivery driver may not drive more than 200km a day. What they do is plenty of stops and I suspect it takes them hours to drive just 20km.
I think plugin hybrids are potentially great for the transition to full EV for people who need to drive long distances.
There are many people who never drive more than 100 miles a day. Why do they need a car with 200, 300 mile range? Not to mention we'll be investing in charging stations along the Interstates, so charge scarcity will be less of a problem.
Fleet vehicles are the perfect first adopters of EVs - they have been using alternative fuel sources for decades in the form of natural gas and LNG. They have short daily range, they go back to a central depot each shift.
It isn't awful range any more than a Mini has awful towing capacity for the person who never tows.
I rented an electric VW Transporter recently (think it's the same van as the Mercedes Sprinter), and it really felt like the future. It was just so nice to operate. Smooth, quiet, tons of torque, and will probably beating day after day with little to no servicing. Range wasn't massive, but for your typical daily urban delivery round that doesn't matter so much. It just made so much sense.
There's a comment on the video from someone that has, though no mention of the touchscreen specifically.
"I used to deliver out here in the Bay Area. This Van has SO MANY improvements over the normal Transits and Fluid Vans. I absolutely LOVE the removal of the side door for the new passenger door space. It actually makes the most sense ever as someone who actually delivered. The spacing on the shelves is questionable to me however.... They are DEFINATELY less wide, the Transits could fit a tote on them with maybe a few inches of overhang."
Sure there are some nice comforts and features that will make life easier for the operator, but on the whole it's a massive step backwards in actual durability, utility and usability.
> All they need is for Ford or Benz to turn their bare bones cargo vans electric
These are already a thing, at least in Europe. Ford only released theirs this year and the Mercedes ones are next year, I think, but Peugeot and Renault have had various electric vans out for a while; you see them around a good bit in Dublin.
Lots of people talking about ToS as if it's applied consistently and without bias. Let's assume that the oft-storied "pee tapes" were real, published by a mainstream news outlet and posted to Twitter. Would those same individuals regurgitating ToS violations agree that should receive the same treatment, or would they have been complicit in spreading it as far and wide as possible?
The situation is clouded by the extreme bias of the employees at Twitter. They seemed to believe they were applying the ToS consistently and fairly despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
It was interesting when they banned Trump that they cited "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th." as a notable incitement of violence. Someone who can put that up and think of it as a serious interpretation is not working from the same reality as most people.
> It was interesting when they banned Trump that they cited "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th." as a notable incitement of violence.
We could be looking at a classic case of groupthink [0]. I've read a lot of political speeches with half-truths to try and gain an advantage, but the Twitter statement stands out as something that might be their honest take. Someone, probably a couple of someones, with high intelligence and communication ability was in such a state that they interpreted the Tweet as inciting violence.
I can. The idea is that he’s signaling that an attack on the inauguration won’t injure him, and so it’s mafia talk for “attack the inauguration”.
I don’t support this as a grounds. It’s so flexible that you can see or not see it at will, so, you can give a charitable read to someone you like or a threatening read to someone you don’t. It also relies on mind reading.
Nevertheless a lot of people can read it that way.
Sources or it’s false. This claim is a pants on fire lie.
No police were killed on that day, contrary to initial reports - but one protester was.
Trump never specifically called for violence but remarked to show protest “peacefully at the capitol” on Twitter. For the lack of evidence, the Jan 6 committee has been running in circles begging for people to step forward.
I don’t have to like Trump or support him to know this claim is asinine.
There is a very lengthy blog posts about why Trump was removed on Twitter's website. I am surprised you pretend like his actions and Tweets around that time are no biggie and that you downplay the violence and actions that occurred on Jan 6 to make it seem like the protestors were the ones who were innocent and harmed, and just FYI the police officer that later died was specifically tied to the events on Jan 6 and several others were seriously injured.
In no way do I want to downplay the actions of the protesters. However, reading what Trump actually said and at the times he said it, it’s way too much a stretch for me to believe that is what he meant.
Also, I think any explainations from Twitter, considering who was running them, are one-sided and should not be taken on face value. That still is the case for who is running it now. I do not trust either for a remotely unbiased assessment.
I think there is a big difference between the sitting POTUS who was known to ask for and receive Russia's help getting elected being shown to have kompromat on him vs the unelected son of a presidential candidate's hacked iCloud nudes being posted
Especially given that in the "pee tapes" trump is clothed while the women are nude and unknown individuals
The pee tape story was completely fabricated, as was the Russian collusion narrative, and that was revealed although carefully subtexted and de-emphasized in the Mueller Report.
No one has exonerated you either. Shouldn't you get cleared of your crimes before commenting?
> the likelihood of some sort of kompromat on Trump is possible and probable.
What "kompromat" could possibly be a big enough deal to compromise Trump at this point? His enemies are trying to persuade the world that he attempted to overthrow the US government and he is still a top-10 candidate for the presidency in the next election.
It's a bit naïve to seriously think this story has anything to do with nudes. The real story was about corruption at the highest levels of government, selling influence, etc. The crack rocks and related pornographic content were a convenient if not shocking distraction. Embarassing? Yes. Scandalous? Sure. But it wasn't what made it news worthy at all.
I know the Trump White House made requests for stuff to be taken down via email, (instead of the Report Tweet button), but I didn't see that President Trump requesting a ToS review for some tweets was this kind of corruption.
Sigh, this is why discussing politics with Americans gets exhausting. It's difficult to get a serious answer out of someone, because all they really care about deep down is making their party look good and the other party look bad.
So often they'll reach for "it's different when my party does it because the other party are nazis/communists/russians/pedophiles/etc." It's just so tiresome and anyone outside the circus can see how unproductive it all is, but people in the thick of it really do see it as Marvel vs Thanos.
It's definitely not dead; there are some amazing projects being hacked on right now.
But I do think it's valid to say that hacker culture is increasingly under-represented on Hacker News, which has, over time, become more and more populated by corporate coders rather than hackers. There's still good hacker content but the hacker ethos of being hostile to the monopolistic power of (big) corporations and fiercely protective of rights such as Free Speech is suppressed (such as by the heavy flagging campaign we have just seen against this particular story).
I don't mean to dump on HN admin with this comment; I think they have fought against this cultural drift but it's always hard to maintain a vibrant, independent-thinking thoughtspace in one place. Inevitably it ossifies and/or moves on to a new space.
(And I'm aware of the "don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit" line in the Guidelines but I don't think that's what I'm doing here.)
I can't speak for everyone who flagged it, but I routinely flag Twitter threads on nontechnical topics because in my experience they're almost always a vector for shoddily sourced news that confirms the readers' biases. Matt Taibbi in particular is someone who I personally find trustworthy enough to tell a story like this. But if I hadn't clicked into this thread already convinced that the broad outline of his story was true, I'd be asking a lot of questions about where Taibbi got his information from and how he knows it wasn't a selective leak to misrepresent the discussions.
Why would you "routinely flag Twitter threads" if they are not obvious spam, dupes, or egregiously off-topic? You are not a guest curator. There is a reason you cannot downvote submissions on HN and the flag button is not a substitute for that.
If you don't like something, ignore it and move on. Someone else may find it interesting. It's not your duty to prevent the rest of the community from reading something you don't like.
It’s not a question of personal dislike. There are plenty of news articles, blog posts, etc. whose positions I think are nonsensical or wrongheaded yet clearly align with HN’s mission of intellectual curiosity. But with Twitter threads on nontechnical topics, in my experience, the intent and effect of posting them is to whip people up into a rage. This not particularly civil comments section is one of the better ones I’ve seen - the top comment as of when im posting this only has two angry exclamation points.
"Corporate coders" is such a perfect, succinct phrase; the antithesis of what I remember from the early days of Linux. It's so well said it requires no further description.
Blocking DMs from sharing URLs to a mainstream news story is CCP-level censorship. I'd expect to read about this happening on WeChat, not here. Yet here we are.
> Blocking DMs from sharing URLs to a mainstream news story is CCP-level censorship. I'd expect to read about this happening on WeChat, not here. Yet here we are.
Twitter admitted it was a wrong decision and reverted it. So it’s more "here we were" than "here we are".
It'll be really interesting tomorrow to see how much tech and media end up suppressing this story too.
Presumably, just like with the story this is all about, they'll just ban all mention of it and delete everybody's accounts because of "safety" or something.
I'm actively watching a variety of mainstream press to see if any of them cover the story, but honestly I doubt they will, other than maybe to have an AP fact check that says that the whole thing is false and that Elon made it all up.
There has been a cabal of activists that have been mass-reporting the Twitter app on both Apple and Google's app stores over the last week or so, alleging some dubious terms of service violation in an attempt to get it deplatformed. It's a sad, petulant response to Musk taking over Twitter, as he invaded their country club and is shaking things up, not unlike Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack.
If you can suppress your laughter at how ridiculous this scheme sounds, the irony is they are organizing this..... on Twitter.
I feel bad for the support staff manning the app store support queues who are dealing with a deluge of these idiotic requests from some of the dumbest, most childish people on the planet. Hopefully they have automation in place to separate the signal from the noise.
And if so, wouldn’t there have been a number of people reporting the app before the takeover, when it was perceived by the other political spectrum to be a woke platform advocating for something they deemed violated the respective TOS? And thinking further, wouldn’t there always be a bunch of activists—and wannabe saboteurs—making false reports for political gains (or other reasons; such as they like the competitor better)? So this if you are right, this is probably not a new thing, and I’m pretty sure the respective app stores have filters in place for their moderators to deal with this.
"Improved" is an interesting term. How much improvement can you make to climate control buttons? Their function in most vehicles has not changed in 30 years and are largely the same aside from styling.
I feel like we just had this conversation two days ago, with the Amazon driver that has to use a touchscreen to open the cargo door in his new EV delivery van. Another ridiculous design courtesy of SV. Maybe the Juicero engineers found a new life at the EV manufacturers.