Posts Tagged → automatic
Where is the Manual Override lever?
A friend of mine has a beautiful home filled up with high technology gadgets. Everything in the house is automated, including opening and closing toilet seats, lights, music, the kitchen wine rack, you name it; if it can be programmed to happen or turn on or off when a person enters or exits the room or uses the potty, he has it set.
First time I encountered this was at a party. It was funny and entertaining. I would experience something newfangled and robotic, comment on it, compliment my friend for his ingenuity, and then retreat to the pool deck or his living room to talk with a human being.
Then a year later he generously hosted me as a guest for a weekend as I ran for state senate, while he and his family were away. Every time I stepped into the kitchen, lights would turn on, the fridge would light up, or automatically open if I approached it, same with the coffee maker, etc. When the shower was turned on, music started.
No matter what I wanted to do, or needed to do, or possibly indicated a desire to do, the automated electronics tried to anticipate me and do it for me. Even the toilet paper dispenser was set to go, maybe not enough, but it tried to provide. Everything but the final act was done by the toilet paper dispenser, but then the guest room toilet also had a bidet feature, which if you are into that, can work wonders if set on “fire hose high.”
After that weekend, I swore I would try to avoid automation as much as possible the rest of my life. It unnerved me, because almost as frequently as the robotics were correct, they were then incorrect, and then annoying. Put another way, the first hour of that is Golly! amusing. The second hour is provocative, as the human mind tries to find ways to work around the now-annoying robots. After that, one becomes tired of the novelty, and a bit alarmed by all of the automated activity that occurs no matter which room one enters into, and what one really wants.
And there is no manual override.
Several years ago I made the mistake of buying a newfangled clothes washing machine. Our old one died, and I had run out of fixes for it. I could not find its two-way electric motor, used, even on eBay, and so it went out into the world of recycling.
Looking for that old machine’s fierce old-fashioned tear-your-arm-off churn of the washing machines we all grew up with, I accepted the salesman’s representation that this new machine could do that, if I programmed it to do it. And Lordy but does it have buttons for programming! It even can link up with your smart phone and be run from that, if you download that manufacturer’s spyware app.
I figured that with all of these sophisticated buttons and options, the machine could probably be programmed to write Shakespeare sonnets, much less really, really clean our family’s clothing.
Nope.
Turns out that the machine has programming for a high efficiency absence of cleaning water set at cold, and shame-on-you low efficiency absence of cleaning water, set at tepid, with the same weak, flaccid, slow, low-energy half-turn of the cleaning rotor as happens with the high-efficiency choice. And the churny-rotor thingy is a superior action to the lift-and-flop motion the machine is set to do from the factory.
Any mistake in trying to run a wash and then stopping it requires the machine to drain out all of the wash water and then start all over again. Which is a waste of water, and whatever electricity it used, and is usually an unnecessary step.
With this new, expensive, high tech clothes washing machine, you are stuck with a set of poor or poorer choices in how to maybe clean your clothes. The machine was designed and programmed by people who care more about energy and water efficiency than actually cleaning clothes.
Note to clothes washer manufacturers: We consumers buy clothes washers because we want our clothes to get clean, however that is done, whatever it takes, at whatever amounts and temperatures of water are needed, and with whatever rotor churn power is needed to knock the caked dirt off of my work clothes. We don’t want high efficiency water and electrictity use for anything other than thoroughly cleaning our clothes. And if the high efficiency settings don’t clean clothes, as they usually do not, then we want a choice in setting the machine to really kick ass and do what clothes washers are supposed to do: Clean. Really, really, super clean. At whatever cost in water and electricity.
And no, there is no manual override for this fancy washing machine. You the consumer are given an incomplete set of choices, and by golly, that is what you will learn to like, whether it is likable or not.
Last but not least among the examples of modern thingies needing a manual override, we have the new car belonging to the Princess of Patience. It is a 2026 Toyota Rav4 hybrid, being number four in a progression of RAV4s the Princess of Patience has owned and relied upon, with great enjoyment.
Heh, well, this latest and greatest iteration of the tried and true and much favored RAV4 inspires our gentle, soft spoken, always well considered Princess of Patience to say things like “I hate this %*$#@! thing. I want to set it on fire and leave it on the side of the road!”
Now, what could inspire such a harsh reaction to something so wonderfully modern and reliable as her new car? In a word: Technological automation.
This damned RAV4 has more technology than a fighter jet, and more automation than the Toyota car factory that built it. The technology is overwhelming, unnecessary, superfluous, and impossible to control, unless one has a degree in computer programming. The little turny knobs we used for the past seventy years for selecting radio stations and interior temperatures worked, ya know. Simple solution, hard to break, easy to tune. Not the new car technology! It is all touch screen, which is hard to see, inelegant, and clumsy.
This RAV4 tries to grab and pull into its computer motherboard every electronic gadget and phone that passes within fifty feet of it, then downloading and storing everything digital on said gadget and phone (to then download to Toyota so the car company can then sell and monetize our most personal information). This car also has every kind of Nanny pseudo-safety feature automatically built in that a weenie sheltered mama’s boy could ever dream up.
The car beeps and chimes and dings if you swerve one inch into the road dividing line. It will also automatically swerve away from any car or dividing line it believes you have mistakenly turned towards, even if you are swerving to avoid a deer standing in the middle of the road, but end up hitting the deer instead, because of the car’s automated correction system.
Ditto for coming anywhere near another vehicle while driving or parking. Last week my left wrist was nearly broken because of the force it hit the steering wheel with, as the car automatically and harshly jammed on the brakes to “save” us from hitting the rear end of a car that was turning into an alley in a congested urban area. We were plenty far enough away from the other car’s bumper, but to the RAV4, we nearly died, and it saved us.
Whoever programmed this car’s automated sensors and driving instructions obviously never drove in Brooklyn, New York, where urban combat driving is the norm and clearances between moving and parked vehicles and with buildings and humans are all measured in tenths of inches. To everyone’s satisfaction. But not to this car!
If I were to try to drive this 2026 RAV4 in a place like Brooklyn, I would leave a trail of destruction and mayhem behind me, on account of the automated driving and “safe reaction” nanny settings programmed into the car. The car would swerve to avoid one perceived obstacle, and then take out two grandmas, a stroller, and a partridge in a pear tree in one full swoop, just to stop me from maybe hitting something. All while the damned thing scans my eyeballs and my brain for what music I might possibly want to listen to at that second.
Folks, there is just too damned much technology and automation and useless gee-whiz gizmos in everything we use. It is all working against us, against our interests, our choices, against our humanity. It is a reflection not of us and our choices, but of the weak and highly risk-averse fairies who program these things before we start using them. And there is no manual override for any of it.
Not everything analog is bad, and hardly everything digital is good. The deeper we go into digital everything, the more we want some of that old analog world back. It was easier, more user friendly, did more with less, easier to maintain, lasted longer and broke a lot lot less than the digital crap.
You want a tamper resistant and theft-proof vehicle, that does what you tell it to do, when you want it? Get a manual stick shift. That is what I want in my next pickup truck, if only to be able to regularly give Third Gear to The Man.
My date with MSNBC
Yesterday I took the Princess of Patience out for her birthday lunch-dinner. She is 49, again, but looks young enough that a waiter asked what my daughter wanted for dinner. No lie. Clean living apparently has its just rewards.
On the other hand, I look like hell.
So while she and I were on our date together, celebrating another notch in her gunstock, in terms I can relate to, our eyes kept getting drawn to the TV playing in the sitting area. For whatever reason, it was stuck on MSNBC, a channel I have obviously heard of, but to which I have had very little exposure. Then again, I watch almost no TV, ever.
So, being of open and easily distracted mind, I ignored my wife on her big day, and instead paid increasing attention to the people on MSNBC. It was in truth a date with the TV channel, as I got sucked in so deeply that I forgot entirely to compliment, thank, and engage with the actual human next to me.
Like I said, she is the Princess of Patience. What she sees in me is a mystery. A normal guy would throw rose petals in front of her every morning. She makes me coffee. I am lucky beyond anything I deserve.
But what of my date with MSNBC?
Well, after a solid hour of really paying attention, let us never again call this a “news channel,” nor its personnel “reporters.”
MSNBC is a wholly dedicated political advocacy program. There is no news being reported. Rather, there is news being edited, commented on, subject to opinions from one perspective, one side, one view. No opposing views or analysis are offered, and the questions designed to sound like alternative perspectives are asked of political advocates with whom the interviewer agrees.
The show was totally dedicated to the Parkland High School shooting and to promoting gun control, gun confiscation, and citizen disarmament. The comments made by the guest people, ranging from high school kids to grey-haired retirees, followed a single line of thought. Most of the comments were just factually wrong, and no one challenged them.
Give credit to the two young high school kids who were interviewed, two young men, they stood in front of the camera and answered questions. But their answers were what you would expect from high school kids: Factually incorrect, emotional, without reason or logic. These kids were being used by MSNBC to promote the channel’s political viewpoints, so no one challenged them on any of their nonsense.
For example, both boys kept stating that AR15s shoot “200 bullets a second.”
That is about 199 bullets more than an AR15 actually shoots in one second.
An AR15 is a semi-automatic firearm, not an automatic firearm. Semi-auto firearms shoot a bullet with each manual pull of the trigger, and most have clips holding 20-30 rounds, not hundreds, as the one boy claimed. And very few automatic firearms of any sort, much less hand-held small arms, shoot at that very high rate of fire.
But MSNBC will not allow actual facts to guide their line of thought.
Consider the fact that the armed deputy assigned to protect the children at Parkland WAS HIDING AS THE SHOOTING OCCURRED.
Yes. When the shooting began the school’s paid deputy sheriff, today a retired deputy sheriff, immediately fled the school and went outside, where he basically curled up in a fetal position.
The man abandoned his post, was derelict in his duty, and let the killer slaughter children and teachers, unopposed.
Consider also that the police had been to the shooter’s home three dozen times for domestic disturbances, and at any time could have intervened between an obviously troubled youth and his gun.
Similarly, the FBI had been repeatedly contacted about the young man’s public threats, and they did nothing. Zero. Nada.
But none of these huge adult failures stop MSNBC from exploiting children, living and dead, from promoting their political agenda of gun confiscation.
And the hour went on like this, a parade of fake data, fake outrage, fake news. At the end of my date with MSNBC I understood why adults I know have a similar disconnect as the adults who failed Parkland’s students. Adults who watch MSNBC and believe they are getting actual news, and actual facts, are failing themselves and those around them. You cannot watch MSNBC seriously, because it is an arm of a radical political movement, at odds with American traditions of news reporting, good government, and legal gun possession.
Watching MSNBC may re-affirm your beliefs, but it will not teach you anything accurate or factual.
MSNBC’s purpose is to persuade watchers of one perspective, not to inform them of facts. MSNBC is fake in every way.
I wondered aloud how much of our other media is like MSNBC, feeding watchers inaccurate information from a political perspective?
That question was answered during the live press briefing at the White House yesterday, which was shown real-time on MSNBC, during our “date.”
During the press event, the national media personnel (they are NOT reporters) were openly hostile toward the president and current administration. They are uniformly and firmly of one political mind, and using their positions as would-be reporters to try and damage an administration they personally oppose. They are advocates, political activists, just pretending to be professional news reporters.
Add this media failure to the long list of other adult failures surrounding the Parkland shooting.
I won’t be going on any more dates with MSNBC again, or with any of her silicon sister media friends, either.
In defense of Mr Coffee
We enjoy coffee in this house.
Rather, to be honest, coffee is a necessity to get a day started properly.
Just one or two cups, and we are off and running full bore.
The question is, How should the coffee be created in the first place?
One person likes the fancy high-tech coffee makers, with all their automated bells and whistles, timers that people outside your home can set their watches by, nuclear heaters, supersonic filters, and so on. You push a button and things start to whirl, hidden gears begin to spin and interconnect, a promising mechanical thrumming starts, and then you wait a hell of a long time while all of the various moving parts begin to work together to make a black liquid known as coffee.
Me, the other person here, likes coffee made easy.
I like Mister Coffee, the low-technology coffee brewer that is easy to set up, easy to turn on, easy to load, easy to run, and easy to clean and shut off.
Unlike the fancy NASA spaceship – inspired coffee makers, with the flick of the ON switch, Mister Coffee quickly pumps really hot water over the coffee grounds and provides hot coffee faster than I can boil it on the stove top.
There are no moving parts in Mister Coffee, no hidden functions, no tiny gears, capacitors or microprocessors that the NSA can hack into to read your kitchen habits.
So when the umpteenth fancy pants ultra-tech coffee maker dies a sudden and unexpected technologically complex death requiring a full autopsy to understand, you can imagine the conversations we have here…
Me: “Well, your latest contraption died, and now we are back to boiling the coffee grounds in a pot, or drinking yechy instant coffee. What do you say we go with the old tried and true Mister Coffee?”
Her: “But I like all those gadgets! I like setting the coffee maker to automatically begin brewing at six AM, and then finding it in flames at 6:15 when I come down into the kitchen.”
Me: “So by being sarcastic about your own choices, are you finally admitting that these high-tech coffee makers universally suck, despite their equally high prices?”
Her: “No, I am not yet ready to give up. While you were gone, I ordered one and have already sent it back after it failed to work properly the first morning. Then I looked at the online reviews and saw that I should not have ordered it in the first place. Another new one arrives tomorrow, same manufacturer. After that, I have another brand to choose from.”
Me: “OK, so….we have still no coffee maker? And you do realize that for twenty bucks, we could have by now had a simple, low-tech, high-function coffee maker on the counter?”
Her: “But I don’t want a Mister Coffee! It’s so boring!”
And so on.
This same conversation has been had in some version about a half dozen times over the same number of years.
Meanwhile, in my own little domain, I continue to use the same Mister Coffee I acquired nearly twenty years ago. Sure, Tim dropped the glass pot early one deer season morning and broke it, back in 2008, I think, but he easily grabbed a new one to replace it, and it is still going strong.
Here is the truth: a) Simplicity trumps complexity almost every time across life’s landscape, as increased complexity results in greater, more expensive, more “exciting” breakdowns, b) coffee is a simple drink, and does not require complex machines to make it, c) low cost and high function trump high cost and low function.
Perhaps there is some hidden aroma associated with fancy coffee machines, and perhaps this hidden aroma stimulates an ego gland buried deep within the brain, resulting in an enhanced coffee drinking experience. All those lights and computer-driven processes could be stimulating on a amusement park ride, so maybe that is happening with these coffee machines, too.
But as far as I am concerned, by the time my fellow coffee addicts have started and finished their Western version of the Matcha, Chado, Sado, and Chanoyu services, I am long gone out the door, fully charged, ready for the day ahead.
Thank you, Mister Coffee, for your constance, your ease of use, and your rugged, low-cost performance.
Here’s to ya!