repairable electronics and small, simple "assistant"-free cars, apparently.
i daily a 2002 Toyota Yaris, and i get to drive modern cars decently often. a few months ago i got to drive a turbo-diesel manual shifted opel.
first of all, boring as fuck. you barely hear the engine, so i had to have one eye on the rev counter all drive long.
also very sluggish, mushy clutch on an almost 2-ton vehicle isn't fun.
the shifter somehow felt even more muddy, and i got back pain from the seats.
then, ten minutes into the drive, the lane keeping assistant kicked in. why would i need that shit if i've been keeping my lane just fine on my own?
all kinds of lamps and sounds just add to the confusion. until the traffic warning feature in the radio blows out your eardrums at max volume, even though THE RADIO IS OFF.
long story short, my yaris is better. it starts every morning, doesn't complain, doesn't interfere, it lets me do my thing. it has one single warning sound that kicks in if you left the lights on, that's it.
also i own a fairphone 4, that one explains itself.
sure, i would love universal seperate bike lanes on roads here in germany. the fahrradschutzstreifen seems really unsafe.
i have no problem with people wanting to save money and trying to be as ecological as possible by using public transport and riding their bike.
but it feels like i'm being attacked for driving a small, comfortable, fuel efficient car. i understand why people living in city centres got used to cars not being around, but you don't solve climate crises by screaming "ban cars!" from every rooftop. that's not gonna make people want to engage, because so many people like driving cars.
i would like to say Akio Toyoda does things very differently, and i love him for it.
this is the guy that made the GR yaris, the GR Supra and the 86 line possible. not all of them great cars, but a good start after 20 years of FWD corollas.
the headphone jack is unforgivable for many users. as an audiophile i often use external DACs anyways, but it still sucks ass to carry around an "emergency audio adapter" which stops working after like a year (even the expensive ones) compared to a built-in one.
fuck you fairphone, but the upsides of the 4 outweighed the downsides for me.
self driving cars would basically be more comfortable and also more expensive public transport.
i for one like to control when i go where at what speed, at which interior temperature, at a great increase in comfort, with a good deal more privacy and in a vehicle i own.
a coexistence of public and private transport to fit everyone's needs and demands would be ideal, but another culture war seems likelier.
meanwhile actual human drivers continue to get worse at driving, partially caused by the many driving "assistants" which won't stop making seemingly random noises. while also enabling the driver to look at their phone while completely ignoring traffic "because they have lane keeping and distance control"
cars around me have my full attention, because my car doesn't interfere wuth my ability to drive. (2002 yaris btw)
we use it at my company to share small files and information between company ipads and iphones, but it's literally irrelevant. we could've just used the whatsapp app (if there was one for ipadOS).
signal FTW, i use it wherever possible. (i don't see convincing 11 colleagues, at least 5 of which are apple cultists to be possible)
how are they supposed to keep up with microsoft with an open messaging standard? can't miss out on being the most valuable company with a market cap at more than 3 trillion dollars...
that's the perks of a phone company who keeps good design decisions going, except for the headphone jack. i will never forgive Fairphone (still bought the 4, sooo...)
Samsung stuff is horrible anyways, my Galaxy watch 4 wouldn't stop acting up, and half the features are not available on stock android or blocked in my region.
i have two odyssey G5 displays, one of them has a dying backlight and i can't find spare parts for the life of me. i didn't even try the support line, since i don't have warranty and they would've told me to pound sand anyways.
that game fucks you up in many ways.