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#46
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Bluetooth query
Mayayana wrote:
"VanguardLH" wrote | As far as all the "goodies" are concerned, a lot depends on what you | want to pay for rather than does it really improve anything. I've seen | folks complaining that someone spends a ton more money on a luxury car | than their cheapo commuter car. Depends on how much you can afford. That's some pretty fancy justification footwork. I don't think it usually has much to do with what one can afford. I remember back in the 60s the cliche of dirt-poor existence was to live in a shack, with a big TV and a Cadillac in the driveway. People buy luxury because they think of consumer products as talismans that hold happiness and success. They want to be winners. Look at ads on TV. Luxury will make you a winner. If you want luxury that shows you're a winner. Why do you suppose people pay $4K to sit on a boat for a week, being treated like royalty while they risk a norovirus infection? It's a fantasy purchase. Those people usually can't really afford it. They save up all year at jobs they dislike so that they can act like royalty on a cruise ship for a week. People buy convenience for a similar reason. They imagine a successful life to be one of relaxation and entertainment. We want to be comfortable. Beyond that we want to be titillated and we want to be winners. That's not to say that extra features are necessarily bad. But people don't buy luxury because they reasonably calculate that headlight wipers will be worth an extra $500. They just simply hope to be winners. They buy luxury in an attempt to treat chronic anxiety and self- loathing. Woops... gotta go.... My automatic bread butterer is almost done and I have to put a new piece of toast in.... I wish I could also have an auto-bread-jam-spreader but right now that's only a dream, for when I win the lottery. | | We all lust | after different things. Yes. But maybe a more interesting question would be what is desire and what do we do with it. Do you assume it should be fulfilled as much as possible? That's what an animal does. I can do without after I'm dead. |
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#47
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Bluetooth query
Mayayana wrote:
My neighbors on one side are college students. But their windows are never open! That might be a good thing for you. Reduces the noise you hear when they play their stereo. The young think more noise means more fun. Also, if you get used to climate control it's very hard to adapt to the sensations of changeable temperatures, especially as you get older. So you end up having to stay in climate control all the time. Acclimation would require the occupants to remain within the premises for many days, if not weeks, to become that innured to a tiny temperature and humidity change. Well, if the occupants aren't leaving their home much, what does it matter if they become acclimatized to their nearly-constant living conditions? How many folks around you are members of the Polar Bear Club? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLqKBkldU5c Most participants are men. Geez, my own sex embarrasses me a lot. Dumb nuts. Oh wait, after they dive in, they don't have any nuts to see. |
#48
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Bluetooth query
Char Jackson wrote:
Mark Lloyd wrote: I had a friend who almost lost a dog because of power windows. The dog was sticking his head out the window, like dogs often do and must have hit the UP button with a paw. She heard the choking and had to pull over quickly. She had to pull over? That meant she was driving. So why couldn't she use the driver-side window controls? Of course, driving with the windows open presents its own risk to the dog. Oh oh, where'd the dog go? Not just dogs; kids have died after getting their head caught in the power window. That's why power window switches are no longer designed in such a way as to allow that to happen. https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...afer/index.htm I'm surprise auto-reverse motors (they change direction when the load gets too high, like trying to close on a kid's neck) are yet mandated in the US. Even my electric garage door opener will reverse if the door hits a restriction on closing. It has the optical sensors to see if there is something low in the doorway but I can reach out and block the door from closing which makes it go back up. "autoreverse is required in the United States only in vehicles with auto/one-touch-up windows and remotely controlled windows." Now I know why my old '02 car has auto down AND UP: push the button past a depression and the window will continue rolling down or up without having to keep pressing the button. Handy when I drive up to a drive through to get the window down with a single press but not have to maintain pressure on the window switch. Handy, too, to roll it back up but keep both hands on the steering wheel (since I'm likely having to turn when leaving the drive through). The new car only has auto down: it will continue rolling down when pressed and released, but no continuos rolling up (my finger comes off the switch and the window stops). And, yep, the new car has lever switches instead of rockers. |
#49
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Electrical window controls. Bluetooth query
Char Jackson on Mon, 06 Aug 2018 13:05:29 -0500
typed in alt.windows7.general the following: On Mon, 06 Aug 2018 09:00:35 -0700, pyotr filipivich wrote: VanguardLH on Sun, 5 Aug 2018 21:29:09 -0500 typed in alt.windows7.general the following: pyotr filipivich wrote: "Mayayana" on Sun, 5 Aug 2018 14:18:16 -0400 typed in alt.windows7.general the following: I was most pleased to not have to get electronic ignition or windows. Both are very expensive and superfluous. Power windows might be nice when I get too old to reach across to put down the passenger-side window. On the other hand, they don't work at all with the car turned off. That can be maddening at the beach while you wait for the driver to get in and start the car. Or you have to get in to turn the key, in order to close the passenger side window before it rains. I doubt 1-2 seconds to turn the ignition to On will matter regarding how much water has rained into your car. Yes,it is only "a couple seconds" more. It is an annoyance. And yes, it probably takes less time to put the key in than to manually crank up each window. But I'd like to be able to just open the door and close the windows ("command switches on the driver's side"). Not "open the door, scramble round to get the key in, close the windows, and pull the key out." When I was a kid, my dad had a pair of Lincoln Continentals that allowed you to open/close the power windows without a key. On hot days, one of us kids would get sent out to 'crack' the windows so the interior wouldn't get so hot, then we'd have to go back and close the windows in the evening. The keys were on top of the refrigerator, but they weren't needed. My mom's cars, on the other hand, all either needed a key to operate the power windows or they had hand cranks. We'd grab the keys for the Cadillac and the Mercury, while the three Chevy's had the lowly hand cranks. My current vehicles both have power windows, but neither has the capability to operate the windows without a key being present. Of course, you don't actually insert a key anymore. These days, just having the key nearby is good enough. I keep it in my pocket. Hmmm - nope. "Of course, this being one of the Older Models (1999), we did have such highfaluting technogizmos in those days." First world problem and all that. True that. -- pyotr filipivich Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing? |
#50
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Bluetooth query
"Mayayana" on Mon, 6 Aug 2018 14:33:04 -0400
typed in alt.windows7.general the following: | That's how you know you've gone from middle aged to elderly. For the old it's a lifesaver. But there are costs. When I have my windows open on a 70F day I find it sad to hear the neighbors' AC starting up. There's wonderful fresh air outside, probably cooler than the air in their house. I can smell the phlox and the roses. Or maybe the honeysuckle. Or the lilacs. I can hear the birds. But people quickly get used to climate control and then never open the windows, living cut off from the outdoors. My neighbors on one side are college students. But their windows are never open! We got the ductless heat pump. Meh - over hyped. But it does keep the front room and bedroom "cool" (below 75). I'm the one who monitors the outside temp, and when it goes below 75, just open the window and cut in the fan. The back office has the old fashioned window AC, I leave it at 75, and when the temps drop, switch from "recycle" to outside air. Let the fan run all night, it cools enough. -- pyotr filipivich Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing? |
#51
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Electrical window controls. Bluetooth query
In message , Mayayana
writes: "Ken Blake" wrote | Are cars with hand-cranked car windows still made? I haven't seen one | in many years. I haven't looked at a _new_ car for many years (possibly decades!), but I _think_ they are still available in UK. (Not sure though: electric ones may actually be cheaper to _make_ now.) [] I think it varies by company. At one extreme is Tesla, which even updates software remotely. I wouldn't be surprised if they monitor your bladder and cross-reference that with Google maps, then pull over at the appropriate rest area. LOL! [] because everything was optional. So the base price was low and you could get only the options you wanted. Though that presumably meant ordering from the factory, not the dealer; on the whole I'd probably prefer to do that too, but would anticipate getting poor service from dealers as a result. (Academic; I've never actually bought a new car anyway, the closest being an ex-demo Lada.) In my current Nissan Frontier I wanted an automatic, so I also had to take AC, bluetooth, cruise control, quad-speaker CD player. Those were all classified as "standard, at no charge". I didn't want any of them. (Though I do use the AC.) At the same time, I had to pay extra to get "optional" floor mats. You put optional in quotes - what would have been there if you'd declined the "option"? The standard transmission was $4K less because it wasn't bundled with all those other things. The AC package would have been an option. So you could buy a standard transmission without A/C (etc.), but not auto? Interesting. Says something about the manufacturers/dealers/whoever's attitude to purchasers of the different transmissions. (In UK, with the possible exception of high-end cars, a manual gearbox - as we call them - is still the default, although auto is available on most cars if you want it, even small ones.) [] I generally prefer to add whatever extras I want later. It's a lot cheaper. And all models are wired for all options, up to a point. (I'm not so sure it would be a good idea to refofit AC.) I remember my Dad buying a very base-model car - I think it might have been in the '80s, or possibly even the '70s - and fitting a radio to it for him; I was surprised to find it not only had the wiring, but actually had the speakers! (In the doors, anyway, which IIRR was adequate for his wants. I'm pretty sure it was a Peugeot.) [] I've noticed that a big trend now is pickups that have a steel, body-matching, hinged bed cover. Essentially it's a 4-door sedan with a giant trunk. (-: There may come a time when people think it's odd to sell a pickup without a bed cover. Then someone will "invent" the work truck. All these things go around and come around. In computers, it used to be mainframes with dumb terminals (in extremis, even electromechanical ones called teletypes); then the terminals got more and more included into them, until we had the PC. Then it went round again, with servers and "thin clients", ... -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Lewis: ... d'you think there's a god? Morse: ... There are times when I wish to god there was one. (Inspector Morse.) |
#52
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Bluetooth query
On 06/08/2018 23:37, pjp wrote:
In article , lid says... I remember that (no need to lock doors) from when I was a child. It would be nice to live in a place like that again. I live ib a place like that. Here in the UK, there are fewer and fewer places like that, though I think many locals around here think this is one. The truth is that rural crime is on the increase, because there are rich pickings stealing agricultural equipment and exporting it immediately after theft, so that it's being loaded onto a ship about the time it's noticed missing: "Rural crime rise prompts 'medieval' defences" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45042294 |
#53
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Electrical window controls. Bluetooth query
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote
| I haven't looked at a _new_ car for many years (possibly decades!), but | I _think_ they are still available in UK. (Not sure though: electric | ones may actually be cheaper to _make_ now.) I doubt that. I doubt even more that they could be cheaper to repair. And cranks rarely need repair. My first pickup was about 19 years old when a spaced out teen slammed into it while it was parked on a quiet side street. The driver's side window crank was beginning to slip at that point. An electronic window control probably would have failed long before. Similarly with electronic ignition. A new key costs me maybe $3. A new electric key costs more like $130. And my door lock can't be hacked remotely. | [] | because everything was optional. So the base | price was low and you could get only the options | you wanted. | | Though that presumably meant ordering from the factory, not the dealer; | on the whole I'd probably prefer to do that too, but would anticipate | getting poor service from dealers as a result. | That's a relevant point, but in my experience doesn't apply. I've never ordered a car or truck. I'm talking about what's *normally* available. My Nissan with only the AC package was in stock locally. The two Toyotas I bought were in stock locally. I need them for work and with two of them didn't have time to wait. So that's what I was talking about: The variations in what companies provide normally. Some companies won't let you order less options at all. They define them as stock. If you look at the factory stickers (I assume it's the same in Britain as the US) one car for $30K might list 17 options included. Another for the same price might have no options. It's all standard. If you buy a "white collar car" you're likely to have less choice. So it's two things: Can you buy a particular model without electric windows at all, and if so, are there any available without custom order. If the answer to #1 is true then usually the answer to #2 will be true. (Though with my Nissan I had to find the truck I wanted online, through the Nissan site. The local dealer then went to get it. They were in no hurry to understand that they could have found that truck themselves, preferring that I pick something on their lot.) As for service, I've never gone to a dealer for service and never would. In the US they price gouge, exploiting people who think only the dealer can fix it properly. My local dealer would love for me to go in for periodic checks and oil changes. I did go in for a recall with my last Toyota. About 5 years ago, I guess. The model was recalled for excessive rusting. For some reason, underbody coating is no longer available in the US and my truck was, indeed, rusting. So I took it in. They did some kind of idiotic painting job, painting on something that looked like dirty motor oil with rubber dust in it. The stuff never dried. Messy. And it doidn't sem to slow the rusting, which is part of why I traded it in later. The dealer I went to was in a wealthy town. The staff for doing the recall work appeared to be a dozen Brazillians. Apparently they were importing low-wage "wetbacks" to save money on the recall costs. As it turned out, they broke a bolt on one of the exhaust pipe sensors and didn't fix it. That quickly started making noise and I had to fix it. | In my current Nissan Frontier I wanted an | automatic, so I also had to take AC, bluetooth, | cruise control, quad-speaker CD player. Those | were all classified as "standard, at no charge". | I didn't want any of them. (Though I do use the | AC.) At the same time, I had to pay extra to | get "optional" floor mats. | | You put optional in quotes - what would have been there if you'd | declined the "option"? It's carpetted. But without mats the carpet would quickly become filthy, damp most of the time, and salt-damaged in Winter. So the mats were worth getting. I think they were something like $50. On my first Toyota pickup the rear bumper was optional. I made my own from 2x6 oak. (Red oak. Not as hard and durable as English brown oak, but still pretty tough.) One of my brothers has a welding setup and he made me brackets for it. It actually worked well. But now I'm older and I want quality. So I have a nice chrome bumper, almost as thick as a Coke can. Ironically, the best bumper I ever had was on a cheap Fiat 128, in the 80s. It had shock absorbers. Very sensible. Most cars now in the US just have painted plastic. You get in an accident and the bumper flies off down the street. Then you can't get it back on because the plastic brackets snapped in the crash. It's actually not a bumper at all. More like a skirt. | So you could buy a standard transmission without A/C (etc.), but not | auto? Interesting. Says something about the | manufacturers/dealers/whoever's attitude to purchasers of the different | transmissions. (In UK, with the possible exception of high-end cars, a | manual gearbox - as we call them - is still the default, although auto | is available on most cars if you want it, even small ones.) I think there are two factors. One is what people want. What sells. The other is a simple case of being forced to buy extra things. But here a manual has become unusual. I specifically wanted to switch because the US has gone stop-crazy. New lights and 4-way stops pop up regularly. It's got to the point that an 8 mile drive to work might easily involve over 50 lights and stop signs. No exaggeration. And the cops like to run scam traps, getting anyone who doesn't fully stop at a 4-way stop in the middle of nowhere. So it was getting very tedious to drive, constantly starting over in 1st gear. | I remember my Dad buying a very base-model car - I think it might have | been in the '80s, or possibly even the '70s - and fitting a radio to it | for him; I was surprised to find it not only had the wiring, but | actually had the speakers! (In the doors, anyway, which IIRR was | adequate for his wants. I'm pretty sure it was a Peugeot.) Yes. I think most are like that. With my first Toyota I bought a cigarette lighter at an auto parts store and plugged it in. It's cheaper for them to just wire in everything. | I've noticed that a big trend now is pickups | that have a steel, body-matching, hinged bed cover. | Essentially it's a 4-door sedan with a giant trunk. | | (-: | I'm not sure there's any correlate in Britain. In the US there's a big-stuff obsession. There's also a macho obsession and a pioneer mythology. Brits pride themselves on intelligence. Yanks pride themselves on tough. In the American West and rural areas, a pickup plays the fantasy role of a horse. Supermarket clerks and car wash lackeys; coffee shop waiters and gas station attendants; even white collar workers; they drive around in a pickup with a rifle rack in the back window, maybe wearing a cowboy hat, and probably with rope in the bed, just in case they come across John Wayne needing help to pull his wagon out of a ravine before some nasty injuns or bandoleros arrive. | There may come a time when people think it's | odd to sell a pickup without a bed cover. Then | someone will "invent" the work truck. | | All these things go around and come around. In computers, it used to be | mainframes with dumb terminals (in extremis, even electromechanical ones | called teletypes); then the terminals got more and more included into | them, until we had the PC. Then it went round again, with servers and | "thin clients", ... I hate that analogy. (But that's OK. You didn't know. It bugs me because it's part of the marketing to make cloud sound like it makes sense when really cloud is mostly just a power grab. People had terminals off of mainframes because a usable computer actually had to be the size of a room. Services for PCs are an unnecessary scam invention that are only now becoming possible, due to constant, fast connections, but are still not relevant. For the most part -- as with Office 365 or Photoshop -- they're not even running remotely. It's not a thin client running remote "rich" functionality. It's a powerful, multi-core machine with no reason not to run all software locally. I suppose a computer phone could be thought of as a thin client. But making a PC thin client would be idiotic. One can't even buy hardware that limited. Last I saw, 16 GB was the lowest level of RAM for sale, per stick. |
#54
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Electrical window controls. Bluetooth query
In message , Wolf K
writes: On 2018-08-07 07:13, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: [...] I remember my Dad buying a very base-model car - I think it might have been in the '80s, or possibly even the '70s - and fitting a radio to it for him; I was surprised to find it not only had the wiring, but actually had the speakers! (In the doors, anyway, which IIRR was adequate for his wants. I'm pretty sure it was a Peugeot.) [...] In general, it's cheaper to build a standard base model prepped for all add-ons than to build cars with different preps for different add-ons. this is true for pretty well manufactured objects. Different models of fridge will have the same handles, shelving, drawers, etc. And plugged holes where the ice-maker or ice-water dispenser is attached in the higher end ones. Bits and pieces are often much cheaper than inventory control and assembly costs. I wouldn't have been that surprised to find all the wiring present, but finding the actual speakers there, rather than as you say plugged holes (or, more likely, just the push-on wires left hanging) did surprise me. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf I'm the oldest woman on primetime not baking cakes. - Anne Robinson, RT 2015/8/15-21 |
#55
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Bluetooth query
In message , Wolf K
writes: On 2018-08-07 08:04, Java Jive wrote: On 06/08/2018 23:37, pjp wrote: In article , lid says... I remember that (no need to lock doors) from when I was a child. It would be nice to live in a place like that again. I live ib a place like that. Here in the UK, there are fewer and fewer places like that, though I think many locals around here think this is one.* The truth is that rural crime is on the increase, because there are rich pickings stealing agricultural equipment and exporting it immediately after theft, so that it's being loaded onto a ship about the time it's noticed missing: "Rural crime rise prompts 'medieval' defences" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45042294 The truth is that rural crime rates have in general been higher than city crime rates everywhere. Country and small-town folk mistake low numbers for low rates. Do the "incidents/100K people" math, and you'll be amazed at how dangerous the peaceful countryside is. Have a nice day, True. Although it _can_ still be valid: if one in a hundred people is a criminal, then the chances of your car surviving are better in Tubleweedville, population 50, than in "the city". (And if one of those _is_ a criminal, chances are the local cop might know who he is, whereas in the city, probably less so.) -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf I'm the oldest woman on primetime not baking cakes. - Anne Robinson, RT 2015/8/15-21 |
#56
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Bluetooth query
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote
| The truth is that rural crime rates have in general been higher than | city crime rates everywhere. Country and small-town folk mistake low | numbers for low rates. Do the "incidents/100K people" math, and you'll | be amazed at how dangerous the peaceful countryside is. | True. You both think that? Yet with no links or references. I'd be surprised if it's true. And I would expect the US to be different from Britain. In Britain, rural is not so far away as it is in the US. Also, in the US most rural people have guns and are prepared to take care of themselves. Both of those factors discourage rural crime. But I have no figures and don't know where one might find such figures. If they exist, I'd be curious about a comparison of types of crime and also percentage of people who knew the criminal. I'd expect the type to vary. For instance, if a drunken teenager walks down the street kicking off rearview mirrors, the same teenager in the country might light a brush fire. Mischief in both cases. But different results. |
#57
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Electrical window controls. Bluetooth query
In message , Mayayana
writes: "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote | I haven't looked at a _new_ car for many years (possibly decades!), but | I _think_ they are still available in UK. (Not sure though: electric | ones may actually be cheaper to _make_ now.) I doubt that. I doubt even more that they could be cheaper to repair. And cranks rarely need repair. I agree the cranks themselves do. Though - here, anyway - there are two types: one that operates a toothed spur that is attached to the glass, and one that has a complicated arrangement using thin steel cable, that goes round several pulleys, and is clamped to the glass. It was the latter type I once had go faulty - the cable gets tangled, and you have to be careful even with the new one not to get it caught on anything while fitting it. My first pickup was about 19 years old when a spaced out teen slammed into it while it was parked on a quiet side street. The driver's side window crank was beginning to slip at that point. An electronic window control probably would have failed long before. Similarly with electronic ignition. A new key costs me maybe $3. A new electric key costs more like $130. And my door lock can't be hacked remotely. I think you mean electronic _access_ (or locking or whatever). To me, electronic _ignition_ is the thing that replaces points, and eventually the rotor arm - and _is_ considerably more reliable (and I think capable of working at all with parts sufficiently worn that the mechanical system wouldn't play ball). The _access_, I couldn't agree with you mo it's the thing I'm actually most dreading for next time I have to change my car. I don't _want_ it, for the reasons you give! I have central _locking_, which is nice to have and relatively simple (i. e. I open/close the driver or passenger door - with the key! - and the other three doors unlock/lock), but that's still based on a mechanical lock; I _don't_ want a key that costs a fortune, could be unreliable, and could be hacked. (OK, the remote beepy to find the car in a car park would be nice, but only for the finding - I can't actually get in until I'm at the car anyway, can I! - so the remote unlocking doesn't actually save me time.) [My key _does_ have a button in it - but what it does, or rather once did, is light a little bulb (yes bulb!) in the key!] [] As for service, I've never gone to a dealer for service and never would. In the US they price gouge, exploiting people who think only the dealer can fix it properly. My I feel the same. (Though with modern electronics, they probably can make that true - unless there's legislation to prevent that. I buy cars older than that - so far.) [] | AC.) At the same time, I had to pay extra to | get "optional" floor mats. | | You put optional in quotes - what would have been there if you'd | declined the "option"? It's carpetted. But without mats the carpet would quickly become filthy, damp most of the time, and salt-damaged in Winter. So the mats were worth getting. I think they were something like $50. Oh, so they were truly optional. I here see in cheap shops sets of universal car mats; I imagine they're not all that universal, i. e. there are cars they won't fit, but they're a lot less than that! [] Ironically, the best bumper I ever had was on a cheap Fiat 128, in the 80s. It had shock absorbers. Very sensible. Most cars now in the US just have painted plastic. You get in an accident and the bumper flies off down the street. Then you can't get it back on because the plastic brackets snapped in the crash. It's actually not a bumper at all. More like a skirt. And/or they cost an arm and a leg, because they're colour-coded to the car's paint job ... Reminds me of a funny from a few years ago: one person was suggesting that bumpers (I thought the US called them fenders?) be a standard height. Someone else said that's daft, otherwise you'd have to have them the same height on a Rolls-Royce as on a mini (that was the original mini, which was tiny, not the current BMW one). Then someone produced a picture showing that, in fact, the bumpers on those two cars _were_ at the same height. Cue very sheepish look from one person ... | So you could buy a standard transmission without A/C (etc.), but not | auto? Interesting. Says something about the | manufacturers/dealers/whoever's attitude to purchasers of the different | transmissions. (In UK, with the possible exception of high-end cars, a | manual gearbox - as we call them - is still the default, although auto | is available on most cars if you want it, even small ones.) I think there are two factors. One is what people want. What sells. The other is a simple case of being forced to buy extra things. But here a manual has become unusual. I specifically wanted to switch because the US has gone stop-crazy. New lights and 4-way stops pop up regularly. It's got to the point that an 8 mile drive to work might easily involve over 50 lights and stop signs. No exaggeration. Hmm, 12½ to the mile - wouldn't surprise me in London ... [] | I remember my Dad buying a very base-model car - I think it might have | been in the '80s, or possibly even the '70s - and fitting a radio to it | for him; I was surprised to find it not only had the wiring, but | actually had the speakers! (In the doors, anyway, which IIRR was | adequate for his wants. I'm pretty sure it was a Peugeot.) Yes. I think most are like that. With my first Toyota I bought a cigarette lighter at an auto parts store and plugged it in. It's cheaper for them to just wire in everything. I haven't seen a car here that didn't have that power outlet, for years. (Or that didn't have the lighter actually in it when new, though that's often got lost in older cars.) | I've noticed that a big trend now is pickups | that have a steel, body-matching, hinged bed cover. | Essentially it's a 4-door sedan with a giant trunk. | | (-: | I'm not sure there's any correlate in Britain. In the US there's a big-stuff obsession. There's also Here, there's not really _room_. Due I think mainly to health and safety regulations cars have got _bigger_, but most houses in towns and cities don't have anywhere to _put_ a big truck. We do _have_ them, but they're a lot rarer. [] even white collar workers; they drive around in a pickup with a rifle rack in the back window, maybe wearing a cowboy hat, and probably with rope in the bed, just in case they come across John Wayne needing help to pull his wagon out of a ravine before some nasty injuns or bandoleros arrive. I carry jump leads and an X-shaped wheelbrace - much more likely to be helpful to someone in difficulties! (Plus I get great satisfaction if I'm able to give a jump-start from my Å*koda to, say, a BMW, Mercedes, or similar ...) | There may come a time when people think it's | odd to sell a pickup without a bed cover. Then | someone will "invent" the work truck. | | All these things go around and come around. In computers, it used to be | mainframes with dumb terminals (in extremis, even electromechanical ones | called teletypes); then the terminals got more and more included into | them, until we had the PC. Then it went round again, with servers and | "thin clients", ... I hate that analogy. (But that's OK. You didn't know. It bugs me because it's part of the marketing to make cloud sound like it makes sense when really I was thinking as I was writing it that it wasn't quite right, but the principle of "old ideas being reinvented" remains. cloud is mostly just a power grab. People had terminals off of mainframes because a usable computer actually had to be the size of a room. Services for PCs are an unnecessary scam invention that are only now becoming possible, due to constant, fast connections, but are still not relevant. For the Couldn't agree more. I'd love to turn most of them off - I just don't have the inclination to spend the time finding out which ones I can, and as you say, it's not necessary now due to the (wasteful) surplus of processor power and bandwidth. [] of as a thin client. But making a PC thin client would be idiotic. One can't even buy hardware that limited. Last I saw, 16 GB was the lowest level of RAM for sale, per stick. The unit cost does keep pushing up the bottom. You'd have hoped that, say, 386- or 486-based PCs would now just cost a few bucks (and be the size of a paperback book), but it became uneconomic (in terms of returning profit for the manufacturers) to make them, so they just disappeared altogether. (Sure, you can get them second-hand, and use them as a media/print server or similar, but only if you're a geek, as they're full size boxes. And unreliable due to their age.) -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf I'm the oldest woman on primetime not baking cakes. - Anne Robinson, RT 2015/8/15-21 |
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Bluetooth query
In message , Mayayana
writes: "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote | The truth is that rural crime rates have in general been higher than | city crime rates everywhere. Country and small-town folk mistake low | numbers for low rates. Do the "incidents/100K people" math, and you'll | be amazed at how dangerous the peaceful countryside is. | True. You both think that? Yet with no links or references. You snipped my followon, which was mostly "true, but:" - in part agreeing with what you've said below. I'd be surprised if it's true. And I would expect the US to be different from Britain. In Britain, rural is not so far away as it is in the US. Also, in the US most rural people have guns and are prepared to take care of Though one gather that plenty of people in cities have them too (especially the criminals)! themselves. Both of those factors discourage rural crime. But I have no figures and don't know where one might find such figures. If they exist, I'd be curious about a comparison of types of crime and also percentage of people who knew the criminal. I'd expect the type to vary. For instance, if a drunken teenager walks down the street kicking off rearview mirrors, the same teenager in the country might light a brush fire. Mischief in both cases. But different results. The increase in rural crime here, according to reports on the box this morning, seems to be mainly the theft of expensive agricultural machinery, to be taken abroad. (Though as with most reports, I don't think it's a sudden increase - just something the media have decided to report on for no obvious reason. [Maybe some statistics have just been released. But they don't usually give a reason for their choice of subject.]) This being a somewhat smaller country, as someone said in one of the reports, "they're on a ship by the time someone notices they're missing." -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf If it jams - force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway. |
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Electrical window controls. Bluetooth query
Wolf K on Tue, 7 Aug 2018 10:11:28 -0400 typed
in alt.windows7.general the following: On 2018-08-07 07:13, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: [...] I remember my Dad buying a very base-model car - I think it might have been in the '80s, or possibly even the '70s - and fitting a radio to it for him; I was surprised to find it not only had the wiring, but actually had the speakers! (In the doors, anyway, which IIRR was adequate for his wants. I'm pretty sure it was a Peugeot.) [...] In general, it's cheaper to build a standard base model prepped for all add-ons than to build cars with different preps for different add-ons. this is true for pretty well manufactured objects. Different models of fridge will have the same handles, shelving, drawers, etc. And plugged holes where the ice-maker or ice-water dispenser is attached in the higher end ones. Bits and pieces are often much cheaper than inventory control and assembly costs. I'm reading how more and more, automakers are all buying major components from the same range of suppliers. That is, Ford no longer makes its own trannys, etc. So what is available for the high end market now is because BMW has a deal for exclusive use for the next couple years, and then the "innovation" will move down the make and model, eventually "everybody" will have 8 speed "automated transmission". tschus pyotr -- pyotr filipivich Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing? |
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Electrical window controls. Bluetooth query
"Mayayana" on Tue, 7 Aug 2018 09:58:02 -0400
typed in alt.windows7.general the following: | Though that presumably meant ordering from the factory, not the dealer; | on the whole I'd probably prefer to do that too, but would anticipate | getting poor service from dealers as a result. | That's a relevant point, but in my experience doesn't apply. I've never ordered a car or truck. I'm talking about what's *normally* available. My Nissan with only the AC package was in stock locally. The two Toyotas I bought were in stock locally. I need them for work and with two of them didn't have time to wait. So that's what I was talking about: The variations in what companies provide normally. I bought the Mazda truck on a Saturday afternoon. I'd been up all night and day, got towed in the last fifty miles, and I needed something to get me to my friends place for the 4th, and then home. "The truck I want is on this lot." If the "fleet white" truck had been an extended cab, I'd have gotten it, and would have explained the change (from"eggshell") as "I finally washed the truck. Makes a great difference, eh?" tschus pyotr -- pyotr filipivich Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing? |
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