Modern Inconveniences: Hybrid Theory

 

One of my most severe pet peeves is when a piece of equipment or technology gets it flat-out wrong. Not just mean visually or mechanically, but autonomically and ethically as well.

I had to rent a hybrid vehicle for a couple of days, and I absolutely hated the thing. Why? Because it constantly did things I didn't direct it to, that I would never have expected or wanted.

Bear in mind that this is decidedly not an Old Man Yells At Cloud problem. I'm a genuinely good driver- taught by professionals, including a former racecar driver. I can operate almost anything from a go-kart to a backhoe. This thing fought me at every step.

Audible chimes and dashboard notifications when I was 'too close' to a highway lane edge? Dinging at me while I backed up like it was a damn bulldozer, or even more loudly when there might be something nearby?

These aren't benefits or warnings, they're hazards. They're distractions.
But it gets worse.

I'd be stopped at a red light, and the engine would just... disengage. Then when I tried to move, the engine would start back up! Not only did that create another auditory distraction, it created a delay. It actively prevented the movement my pressure on the accelerator should have yielded- which is an obvious safety hazard to any competent vehicle operator.

Last among the stunners, the manufacturers appear to have dismissed the notion of personal responsibility. 

The sun was up, so I toggled off the headlights.
While switched off, they turned back on again! The damn thing wouldn't LET me keep them off!

In short, it appeared to be more dangerous to more qualified vehicle operators than to poorly skilled ones. Without a fair bit of time in the manual, I'm not even certain I could have fixed these dangerous settings. If a function doesn't suit my need, then the ability to readily disable it is absolutely essential, and this was anything but clear.

Now the question is- why? Why are the designs deliberately, obviously handicapped? The engine disengage problem is probably a hybridization issue- knowing where to put what in terms of optimal engine implementation seems a solvable issue, one currently technically functional but not ideal.

What also seems to be missing is the understanding of how to do so in a way that doesn't create a hazard for an operator with preexisting expertise, and so for those around them. Just as a skilled cook doesn't need a smoke alarm unless they're not in the kitchen, a skilled driver doesn't need to be told when they need their lights on, nor warned about where they are on the road... unless they ask for it.

Such things have a place. But they are only, always, and ever to be operator-engaged.

Unsafe and Unnecessary Information

 

With the massive expansion in internet availability around the world, the potential for easy access to information has never been higher. 

Unfortunately, the world is full of people who don't care about accuracy, only marketability, and the modern internet centers around that fundamental design flaw (and the accompanying character flaws responsible).

Accurate information tends to be static. It's sometimes utilitarian, even boring. It comes from verifiable professionals, often with accompanying references. 

That's not how the internet works right now, which is a terrible problem. Such a measured, deliberate approach not only fights with the current rapid-fire "content creation" meta, but also with the visibility and accessibility algorithms behind the websites themselves.

Under the hood, the modern internet is sabotaging itself for the sake of short term offscreen profits, maximizing its ability to farm search information, then harvest and sell potentially useful data to other corporations and governments that are willing and able to pay. It's like a futures market- so all parties know it's nonsense but they play along anyway!

When it comes to most things food-related online, aids like the Jump To Recipe browser plugin are almost mandatory, since brief documents with lower word count (as opposed to, say, short videos) get reduced priority in search engines, rendering them less effectively found. What would otherwise be a quick and easy lookup feels like it's been hamstrung from both sides, padded out to the point of aggravation with longform anecdotes and ersatz prose just to reach a level of search priority it was obliged to from the start. 

To a person in a hurry looking for a weeknight dinner notion, it feels like a profound betrayal to find a 'recipe' webpage that then requires navigating past a handful of ads, sponsorships, and an often unreadably obtuse wall of vaguely related text to find a 'recipe' that might turn out to be a poorly formatted mess ill-suited for the purpose. There is little worse than wasted time.

The internet was developed to speed up information sharing, after all. 

Anyone else still remember the old term "The Information Superhighway"?

Doesn't exist any more. Now useful things are buried in piles of catchy but forgettable junk. We've got lasting horrors like NyQuil Chicken, or the uniquely Chicagoan Malört Sausage. Does anyone remember the memetic horror Tide Pod Pizza? Things like that are/were popular. Imagine the horrors you might have missed!

I keep my personal online presence to a relative minimum. I've talked about it before, even. The more of something there is, the less likely any of it is going to be adequately organized, curated, and useful to those who might seek it out.

Just because it can exist doesn't mean it should, and just because it exists doesn't mean it deserves to be seen. Reckless promotion of unverified information kills people. Hasn't that been obvious enough these past few years?

Unfortunate that this morning showed clearly how sufficiently large companies are willing to cover for one another at the macro level when it comes to misinformation. The sorts of problems these situations create can't be solved with just money. When it looks okay for the big guy, the little one imitates, and the whole environment suffers.

But I suppose if given enough money, one can buy sufficient peace and quiet for the rest of one's days... minus occasional grumblings from a vestigial conscience.