7 ms·

I use a lot of technology I guess some would consider vintage. It is not due to any specific preference for vintage or as a vintage hobby. It's just that a lot

by jjav 6y ago

I use a lot of technology I guess some would consider vintage. It is not due to any specific preference for vintage or as a vintage hobby. It's just that a lot of the older products are so much better for the consumer. It makes me sad because we have the technology and resources as an industry to make so much better products than ever before, but we just don't focus on quality for the consumer anymore. Can we collectively care to do better? Today main product design drivers are collecting usage data and selling it to advertisers, enforcing dependency on cloud services, preventing repairability and ownership (vs. ongoing licensing). All these factors improve recurring revenue for the producing company but all of them are anti-features for the consumer. All my cars are older and will forever be. No TV screen on the dash to go bad, no integrated CAN bus making diagnostics and repair a nightmare, no fly by wire nonsense. No phone-home spyware or OTA update horrors. If a relay goes bad it's a physical relay I can swap, easy. And so on, everything is fixable. I unpacked my old Wii to play with my son. All the games are on DVD, so I own them, they won't disappear from the cloud, no dependency on internet connectivity, no subscriptions to pay. For music in the house I run many squeezebox devices. The server is self-hosted and open source, no dependency on anything external, no subscriptions or cloud service to be suddenly cancelled.

cwyers 6y ago
> All my cars are older and will forever be. No TV screen on the dash to go bad, no integrated CAN bus making diagnostics and repair a nightmare, no fly by wire nonsense. No phone-home spyware or OTA update horrors. If a relay goes bad it's a physical relay I can swap, easy. And so on, everything is fixable. Fuel efficiency is worse in older cars: https://www.bts.gov/content/average-fuel-efficiency-us-light-duty-vehicles https://www.bts.gov/content/average-fuel-efficiency-us-light... So are emissions: https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-trends-report https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-... Safety standards, too. All of those things are quality benefits for the median consumer (who doesn't even know what a CAN bus is).
- d1zzy 6y ago
  Yeah, but on the other hand... http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160809-your-car-is-not-your-friend http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160809-your-car-is-not-your...
- cookie_monsta 6y ago
  > Fuel efficiency is worse in older cars But the emissions footprint in producing the new, fuel efficient car to replace your old one is quite staggering
  - cwyers 6y ago
    I agree, and you absolutely shouldn't replace a car on the basis of fuel economy savings alone. (Having said that, most people aren't junking their old cars if they have a useful service life left, they're reselling them into the used car market.) But if you compare a new 1998 car to a new 2018 car of the same class, the 2018 car is absolutely going to be better on fuel efficiency and emissions than the 1998 car. And it's not like they got better at fuel efficiency and worse at user maintainability for entirely unrelated reasons; sticking little computers and sensors in things like the fuel injection system is why they're more fuel efficient/better at emissions. (Yes, the little dashboard display is not saving you anything on fuel, it's not 100% related, but they're not fully orthogonal issues either.
    - cookie_monsta 6y ago
      Sure, emissions are undeniably better (unless you have a VW, haha) but this is only a net gain if the car gets scrapped, not sold into the used market like you say most people do - that way we have the old smoker still driving around, plus the new one and all its manufacturing costs. The only real gain is for the new car buyers psychologically - they get to feel like they're doing their part, buying their way to a greener planet.
      - cwyers 6y ago
        Some number of cars are always going to need to be made new in a year -- due to collisions, wear and tear, etc. It is better for everybody, ceterus parabus, if newer cars are better at fuel efficiency and emissions. It is possible that the number of new cars is higher than it needs to be, but I am unaware of any evidence that suggests it is. Regardless, for each marginal car bought, it's better if that car is more fuel-efficient.
- jjav 6y ago
  > Fuel efficiency is worse in older cars On fleet-wide average, for sure. But not for all cars. One of my cars (daily commuter pre-pandemic) is a late 80s Honda CRX, it gets nearly 40 MPG. Even in 2021 many (probably most) cars can't match that kind of efficiency. (Energy cost per mile is lower than for my partner's electric Fiat 500e!) The car that makes me sad and almost angry is the original CRX HF (mine is not an HF). This is a car that got over 50MPG with mid-80s engine technology! https://jalopnik.com/1986-honda-crx-hf-393147 https://jalopnik.com/1986-honda-crx-hf-393147 If Honda had continued developing the HF engine, what kind of mileage could an evolved 2021 CRX HF be getting today? We'll never know, but I'd guess over 70MPG.
  - roywashere 6y ago
    Yes! I owned a Honda Civic 1996 with VTEC petrol engine and it had the same fuel efficiency as my current Prius.
    - rsj_hn 6y ago
      Honda has done some amazing things with engine design, and they are catching up to Toyota in terms of reliability as well. 2018 Honda Accord - 4 door sedan - I4 has 45 mpg in real world driving. https://www.truedelta.com/Honda-Accord/mpg-108 https://www.truedelta.com/Honda-Accord/mpg-108
  - kumarsw 6y ago
    There were a lot more smaller car models in the 80s-90s which makes a difference. It also helps that older cars are less likely to be 4WD/AWG. Finally, a MT will be more efficient than a torque-converter automatic with the same number of speeds. As a ranty aside: You are not safer in an older car because they usually have lousy side-impact ratings. Also, the cyber-security issues of newer cars are overstated. While new cars have many computers, outside of what's in the head unit these aren't general purpose computers, but rather are running code bare-meta, don't communicate on anything other than a can bus or i2c and follow a decentralized architecture. Car manufacturers are extremely conservative in their designs. There have been documented issues like the Jeep Cherokee head unit being able to send arbitrary messages over CAN via the head unit cellular link but but all current car models have telematics.
- Klwohu 6y ago
  There’s more to life than fuel economy and emissions. One trip of a bulk freighter carrying wood chips to be made into toilet paper produces more emissions than hundreds of thousands of people driving their cars all year long. If you decide that you want increased fuel economy and better emissions, well that’s your choice. As for me I will purchase things I don’t have to throw away. New cars are actually pretty shitty compared to ones from a couple decades ago, this is common knowledge among auto enthusiasts.
damontal 6y ago
My mechanic complains about newer cars with all these electronics. If a car is officially totaled but still repairable it can be a big problem. Say the car is totaled and someone buys it to fix it. The door lock needs to be fixed but you need an electronic code from the manufacturer to make the repair. But since it was totaled, the vin has been removed from the manufacturer’s database so they can’t provide the code. Or you have one of these cars with sensors in the windshield to detect other cars on the road and your windshield cracks. That’s going to cost a hell of a lot more to fix than a regular windshield.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
I am starting to contemplate that with older computers, energy efficiency and other such sacrifices may actually be worth it in some cases. The internet connectivity issues is particularly annoying because its "primary beneficiary" is often not the hardware purchaser. I believe the "latest technology" today, as in the stuff discussed on HN, is often less reliable than what came before. Convenience is interesting, but if asked to choose, I would choose reliability over convenience. I also fear that younger generations are being conditioned to accept lower threshholds of reliability.
pabs3 6y ago
At some point I feel like ICE cars might become outlawed, so it might be a good time to start building your own electric car.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  That would be near impossible in the Federal system we have. It is the purview of the state to license vehicles on its roads and to determine what characteristics the vehicles must have in order to be given a license. But as much as some areas are concerned with emissions, 17 states don't even do any emissions testing and of the remaining 33 states that do, only 10 require emissions testing statewide instead of in just a few areas. I can see some of the blue areas banning all sorts of things, but the red areas wont, and there are constitutionality issues with trying to stretch the commerce clause to things like forcing states to ban certain types of technology. Even the Federal highway speed limits have been a constitutional nightmare and many states no longer follow the national speed limits, which were also designed to improve on fuel economy and reduce emissions (e.g. https://www.newsweek.com/kentucky-judge-rules-states-speed-limit-laws-are-unconstitutional-inconsistent-unclear-1460579 https://www.newsweek.com/kentucky-judge-rules-states-speed-l...)
  - pabs3 6y ago
    I don't know the American system well, but what about via interstate commerce stuff - banning selling ICE cars across state lines for example.

by jjav 6y ago

cwyers 6y ago

> All my cars are older and will forever be. No TV screen on the dash to go bad, no integrated CAN bus making diagnostics and repair a nightmare, no fly by wire nonsense. No phone-home spyware or OTA update horrors. If a relay goes bad it's a physical relay I can swap, easy. And so on, everything is fixable. Fuel efficiency is worse in older cars: https://www.bts.gov/content/average-fuel-efficiency-us-light-duty-vehicles https://www.bts.gov/content/average-fuel-efficiency-us-light... So are emissions: https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-trends-report https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-... Safety standards, too. All of those things are quality benefits for the median consumer (who doesn't even know what a CAN bus is).

d1zzy 6y ago
Yeah, but on the other hand... http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160809-your-car-is-not-your-friend http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160809-your-car-is-not-your...
cookie_monsta 6y ago
> Fuel efficiency is worse in older cars But the emissions footprint in producing the new, fuel efficient car to replace your old one is quite staggering
- cwyers 6y ago
  I agree, and you absolutely shouldn't replace a car on the basis of fuel economy savings alone. (Having said that, most people aren't junking their old cars if they have a useful service life left, they're reselling them into the used car market.) But if you compare a new 1998 car to a new 2018 car of the same class, the 2018 car is absolutely going to be better on fuel efficiency and emissions than the 1998 car. And it's not like they got better at fuel efficiency and worse at user maintainability for entirely unrelated reasons; sticking little computers and sensors in things like the fuel injection system is why they're more fuel efficient/better at emissions. (Yes, the little dashboard display is not saving you anything on fuel, it's not 100% related, but they're not fully orthogonal issues either.
  - cookie_monsta 6y ago
    Sure, emissions are undeniably better (unless you have a VW, haha) but this is only a net gain if the car gets scrapped, not sold into the used market like you say most people do - that way we have the old smoker still driving around, plus the new one and all its manufacturing costs. The only real gain is for the new car buyers psychologically - they get to feel like they're doing their part, buying their way to a greener planet.
    - cwyers 6y ago
      Some number of cars are always going to need to be made new in a year -- due to collisions, wear and tear, etc. It is better for everybody, ceterus parabus, if newer cars are better at fuel efficiency and emissions. It is possible that the number of new cars is higher than it needs to be, but I am unaware of any evidence that suggests it is. Regardless, for each marginal car bought, it's better if that car is more fuel-efficient.
jjav 6y ago
> Fuel efficiency is worse in older cars On fleet-wide average, for sure. But not for all cars. One of my cars (daily commuter pre-pandemic) is a late 80s Honda CRX, it gets nearly 40 MPG. Even in 2021 many (probably most) cars can't match that kind of efficiency. (Energy cost per mile is lower than for my partner's electric Fiat 500e!) The car that makes me sad and almost angry is the original CRX HF (mine is not an HF). This is a car that got over 50MPG with mid-80s engine technology! https://jalopnik.com/1986-honda-crx-hf-393147 https://jalopnik.com/1986-honda-crx-hf-393147 If Honda had continued developing the HF engine, what kind of mileage could an evolved 2021 CRX HF be getting today? We'll never know, but I'd guess over 70MPG.
- roywashere 6y ago
  Yes! I owned a Honda Civic 1996 with VTEC petrol engine and it had the same fuel efficiency as my current Prius.
  - rsj_hn 6y ago
    Honda has done some amazing things with engine design, and they are catching up to Toyota in terms of reliability as well. 2018 Honda Accord - 4 door sedan - I4 has 45 mpg in real world driving. https://www.truedelta.com/Honda-Accord/mpg-108 https://www.truedelta.com/Honda-Accord/mpg-108
- kumarsw 6y ago
  There were a lot more smaller car models in the 80s-90s which makes a difference. It also helps that older cars are less likely to be 4WD/AWG. Finally, a MT will be more efficient than a torque-converter automatic with the same number of speeds. As a ranty aside: You are not safer in an older car because they usually have lousy side-impact ratings. Also, the cyber-security issues of newer cars are overstated. While new cars have many computers, outside of what's in the head unit these aren't general purpose computers, but rather are running code bare-meta, don't communicate on anything other than a can bus or i2c and follow a decentralized architecture. Car manufacturers are extremely conservative in their designs. There have been documented issues like the Jeep Cherokee head unit being able to send arbitrary messages over CAN via the head unit cellular link but but all current car models have telematics.
Klwohu 6y ago
There’s more to life than fuel economy and emissions. One trip of a bulk freighter carrying wood chips to be made into toilet paper produces more emissions than hundreds of thousands of people driving their cars all year long. If you decide that you want increased fuel economy and better emissions, well that’s your choice. As for me I will purchase things I don’t have to throw away. New cars are actually pretty shitty compared to ones from a couple decades ago, this is common knowledge among auto enthusiasts.

damontal 6y ago

My mechanic complains about newer cars with all these electronics. If a car is officially totaled but still repairable it can be a big problem. Say the car is totaled and someone buys it to fix it. The door lock needs to be fixed but you need an electronic code from the manufacturer to make the repair. But since it was totaled, the vin has been removed from the manufacturer’s database so they can’t provide the code. Or you have one of these cars with sensors in the windshield to detect other cars on the road and your windshield cracks. That’s going to cost a hell of a lot more to fix than a regular windshield.

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

I am starting to contemplate that with older computers, energy efficiency and other such sacrifices may actually be worth it in some cases. The internet connectivity issues is particularly annoying because its "primary beneficiary" is often not the hardware purchaser. I believe the "latest technology" today, as in the stuff discussed on HN, is often less reliable than what came before. Convenience is interesting, but if asked to choose, I would choose reliability over convenience. I also fear that younger generations are being conditioned to accept lower threshholds of reliability.

pabs3 6y ago

At some point I feel like ICE cars might become outlawed, so it might be a good time to start building your own electric car.

rsj_hn 6y ago
That would be near impossible in the Federal system we have. It is the purview of the state to license vehicles on its roads and to determine what characteristics the vehicles must have in order to be given a license. But as much as some areas are concerned with emissions, 17 states don't even do any emissions testing and of the remaining 33 states that do, only 10 require emissions testing statewide instead of in just a few areas. I can see some of the blue areas banning all sorts of things, but the red areas wont, and there are constitutionality issues with trying to stretch the commerce clause to things like forcing states to ban certain types of technology. Even the Federal highway speed limits have been a constitutional nightmare and many states no longer follow the national speed limits, which were also designed to improve on fuel economy and reduce emissions (e.g. https://www.newsweek.com/kentucky-judge-rules-states-speed-limit-laws-are-unconstitutional-inconsistent-unclear-1460579 https://www.newsweek.com/kentucky-judge-rules-states-speed-l...)
- pabs3 6y ago
  I don't know the American system well, but what about via interstate commerce stuff - banning selling ICE cars across state lines for example.