> I could be paranoid. They could have simply moved things on the desk. But anyway, people who are paranoid like me are advised not to take their laptops into Uber interviews. They are capable of just about anything, or so thinks my now paranoid self.
I would be cautious about discrediting intuition as paranoia.
> Then you are criticizing something other than their actual description.
No, I'm criticizing the wording. Perhaps you should ask yourself more questions about the construction of these descriptions and what messages they convey, than merely the definition of the word usually.
Of course I am ignoring the word "Usually". It's not a substantial word. How much is usually? There are always "uncommon exceptions" to some subject (see the implicit flaw with this sentence? That's because I don't use the word "usually". What kind of an argument can I make without the word "usually"?)
It disregards a whole field of volunteered hard work to make mesh networking technology accessible by people who don't want to buy "expensive, commercial" hardware and software.'
It sends the message: "Don't look further, because it's not worth it -- because usually other solutions are expensive and commercial."
The difference between the two isn't in the UI. Wireless repeaters traditionally have a set receiving and transmission point. Let's assume that signal interference / reflection / amplification does no matter, for the sake of simplicity in this example. So if you have a chain of three repeaters A <--> B <--> C, and then you move access point C closer to A (closer than B is to A), then the topology does not change (do you see the issue here?). Worse, if you have a longer chain with a few alternatives, then a single point going down (call it X) would require nodes previously connected to X to be reconfigured.
Mesh networks automatically judge the path of least resistance to a destination, and distribute the state of all the access points on a network. If one access point goes down, all the access points previously connected to the faulty access point will find alternatives if there's anything else within signal range.
In this case, if those are meant to be portable access points, you can move them between different rooms without worrying about nodes choosing a suboptimal path.
>> But that's different from saying "something usually only seen in expensive commercial installations".
> No, its not. The fact that there are inexpensive alternative means by which it can be deployed, and by which certain segments of the population can and do deploy it, doesn't make it any less true that it is usually only seen in expensive commercial installations.
Well then they should have made that more clear. Expensive + commercial means, well, expensive, and commercial installation means proprietary and hard to access (which, by the way, is also untrue).
> I don't think it tends to mislead any group at all. I think
that the group to whom the exceptions to the "usual" case accurately described here is relevant will be well aware of it and so not misled, and the group who is not interested will also not be misled by the accurate statement, even though they are likely to be less aware of the nature of the alternative.
Sorry, I edited my comment for clarity. Anyway I don't think it's right to just say that because a certain population can't be mislead, it means that the information itself is not misleading.
But that's different from saying "something usually only seen in expensive commercial installations". And it is still misleading, accuracy of some information has nothing to do with what someone is looking for (a self-contained, plug-and-play mesh network).
> The system uses a technology called mesh Wi-Fi (something usually only seen in expensive commercial installations).
This is misleading. You can create your own mesh networks with several off-the-shelf routers / access points using open source software like batman-advanced [0].
I would be cautious about discrediting intuition as paranoia.