Actually I’m not so sure about that. The turning on and off quickly part.
Because in my country (in Asia) there’s surplus energy from renewables (solar, wind) during the daytime, so much so that they’re having to shut things down because the grid can’t handle it (yet).
However at night we need power from traditional sources (coal, basically. We do have hydroelectric and nuclear power also, but that’s not sufficient).
They cannot shut down the coal plants during the day because apparently turning it back on is a tricky time consuming process.
They cannot run the coal plants at reduced capacity because that reduces the efficiency and increases the wear and tear of the equipment.
And the renewables also brought up another problem in that the power that comes is not steady (unlike the traditional sources).
All that is putting pressure on the grid.
The long term solution is to upgrade the grid to handle all this. And the government is working on it (I think). But that’ll take time to do. At least a decade.
Uhh, I don’t know much more technical details about all this. Maybe more knowledgeable members can contribute.
> People that didn't have the skills to compete, now do.
Come on now, you can’t be mad that people acquired the skills.
Realize that whatever your frustration is, those people who acquired the skills are probably not the root cause of whatever is currently going on, in the bigger picture sense.
Maybe a lot of them can now put food on their table.
I think this “awesome”, “amazing”, “super exciting” phase came much later than the moon walking era. Remember it’s been over 50 years since humans walked on the moon. Much has changed.
See these old videos, where people talk in a straightforward way:
Ah, let me add on to this from the other perspective.
I live in a country where cars are driven on the left side of the road. ie., the steering wheel’s on the right side, and the gear shifter is operated by the left hand.
And until about 5 years ago stick shifts were very common (automatic transmission was considered a luxury feature only available in higher variants).
I’m right handed. I have no trouble at all shifting gears with my left hand. Feels very natural to me.
I have never driven a left-hand-drive vehicle and in my imagination it feels weird. Like, operating the clutch with the left leg, and the gear with the right hand feels weird. In RHD cars the gear is in the same side as the clutch.
But anyway I know lots of people who drive LHD cars when aboard, and they have never complained.
So I think at least for driving it’s just a matter of getting used to it.
> I often have to make repeated presses on my iphone until it registers.
This makes me really curious.
And you seem to have a problem with all your Apple devices. That’s why I wondered whether you’re experiencing that only with Apple or whether it happens with Android devices as well. Perhaps you could borrow a friend’s, or try using a demo phone at a store etc.
Also have other people use your problematic devices and see if they experience a problem.
I’d love to dig into this further with you (because, curiosity), but alas we live in different universes.
Though I don’t own one, I’m fortunate enough to occasionally be able to drive around a “Benz”. It’s my dad’s. Over here we prefer saying “Benz” rather than “Mercedes”.
It’s a W212 E-Class, bought new just a few months before the all new generation hit the market.
It has no touchscreen. But the UI/UX is terrible anyway. My dad still has no idea how to bring up the tire pressure monitoring screen, for example. Using the buttons to navigate a myriad of menus is not exactly straightforward.
The physical user manual book that came with the car has limited information and recommends viewing the user manual through the screen. The screen is not a touchscreen. There’s a knob in between the seats to navigate the system. Very terrible experience.
On the other hand, a Honda economy car that I used to have had the most straightforward physical controls imaginable.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, eliminating touchscreen by itself will not necessarily make anything easier, especially if the car itself is complex.
So do you think iPhones built in China have terrible build quality? How about the ones made in India? I have an India-built iPhone — can’t tell a difference.
Chinese parts don’t necessarily mean low quality. It may have meant that in the past, but not anymore. People need to get over that mentality.
There’s nothing inherently magical about anywhere (be it Europe, America, India, China, or anywhere else) that guarantees things made there are of impeccable or terrible quality. If it’s built well it’s built well.
> I'm seriously considering importing my next car from Russia or India
I'm highly familiar with India. So, keep the following in mind:
(All of this is w.r.t European cars in India; situation is different for Indian, Japanese, Korean, and American car companies)
1. Cars manufactured in India (including Mercedes/BMW/VW/Skoda etc) are set up for right hand drive (steering wheel is on the right, and cars are driven on the left side of the road).
2. For high end brands you don't get as much configuration options as in Germany; limited choices with interior materials and colour. The flip side is, the time from booking a car to its delivery is relatively short, provided you buy a model that's relatively widely sold. ie., a Mercedes C200 shouldn't take too long to deliver. But the AMG models might take longer.
3. German cars are crazy expensive in India.
4. For most German brands, the parts are imported from Europe and assembled in their plants in India (this is called the "CKD - completely knocked down" route). Would be inefficient to then move that car back to Germany.
5. Higher end German cars (like, BMW M models, Mercedes AMG models etc) are directly imported into India from Europe. Direct imports have extremely high taxes. Again, would be inefficient to ship it back to Germany.
I don't mind newspapers being a subscription, because every day they have to do a lot of work to come up with a new version.
However, I find subscriptions super annoying for things that already exist in its entirety and doesn't cost the service provider anything to give more of.
Something I find unacceptable is the subscription situation coming up in the car industry:
Some examples include:
* BMW heated seat subscription [1]. The entire hardware for the heated seats is already in the car!
* Mercedes horsepower subscription [2]. Again, the entire capability is in the car. It's not like Mercedes sends the souls of horses OTA into your car after you subscribe.
I too learnt of "noughties" recently. Never heard "aughts" before.
But then again, English isn't my first language.
Now that I think about it, I've heard people here say, for example, "1 nought 1", "1 nought 2", "1 nought 3" etc for 101, 102, 103, and so on.
Of course, I always thought they said "1 'not' 1", and not "1 'nought' 1", and didn't ponder too much into it, even though neither of them made sense to me.