4 ms·

It's definitely not ideal, and I obviously try to do better than that in any product I work on. But I've seen so many things fail due to bad switches, connecto

It's definitely not ideal, and I obviously try to do better than that in any product I work on. But I've seen so many things fail due to bad switches, connectors, and other simple parts, to me it's a great tradeoff to occasionally reboot something as opposed to having it totally fail at some random time within a few years. I wouldn't trust my life to it, but I'll trust my watch party to it. Plus, a consumer now only needs to power cycle or factory reboot, so untrained people can keep stuff going. I'd much rather they need reboots than need skilled work like they used to, that just wouldn't be practical in a digital first world. Oddly enough having failures be so normalized makes them less problematic, because the victim doesn't get many complaints. People who have to wait just assume that's how it is, nobody will tell you you shouldn't have used a computer for that Before all these complex systems we used pen and paper and things subject to human error, and we had to deal with that quite a bit. Computers suck compared to what they could be but they are amazing compared to a lot of older stuff.

bumby 4y ago
We can design hardware to last, but I think we often don’t for economic reasons. My larger point is that using software just trades one well-understood failure mode for a group of unknown, hard to test failure modes, usually because it’s cheaper. I think my biggest complaint comes as a result of the data economy. You can still find “dumb” tvs but they are usually a lot more expensive than their smart variants, I assume because they cannot monetize your viewing habits. My SO convinced me to get rid of my old laser, USB interface printer. That one always worked but was old. My new WIFI enabled one requires logging into an app to use, and the USB interface maybe works 10% of the time. The app and hardware constantly require power cycling before it works. Many times it never does. One thing becomes apparent in quality engineering: often, adding more components/interfaces undermines reliability because there are often exponentially more failure modes. It feels like we’re being trained to no longer expect reliability, and the beneficiaries are not the consumers but the companies that create unnecessary interfaces to monetize data.
- eternityforest 4y ago
  I think that definitely applies when you have updatable software or software that interacts with something updatable, but less so for the 8 bit embedded MCU stuff typically used to replace hardware. If you, say, use a microcontroller to soft start a motor instead of making it bigger, or use a capsense pad instead of a switch(Yes they can be obnoxious, but at least they last!), you are unlikely to get into a permanent bricked state because you're not writing to flash at all. Your failure modes might increase in number as software complexity increases, but for the most part they stay ephemeral. I'm not sure exactly why experiences are so varied on things like smart TVs and WiFi printers. I have the "Smart" version of almost everything, and it usually works very well, but some people seem to have generally bad experiences. I think some of it might be because they only test on fairly generic consumer setups with the latest stock Android, no firewall, no VPN, Bluetooth never turned off, no custom DNS, gmail for the email account, etc, and more tech savvy people tend to have a few things that modern tech doesn't like. It always seems like people who tinker have problems other people don't. I also notice iOS users seem to have trouble with random gadgets and peripherals not being too happy, but a my iPhone using friends aren't a big sample size. If I was designing a product, I'd definitely be more careful, but as a user at home, I tend to avoid anything heavily customized, so I don't usually see as many of the bugs.
  - bombela 4y ago
    I have a fancy OLED TV, not connected to the internet. A powerful desktop running MS Windows 10. And a fancy sound system with Dolby Atmos. First MS Windows is the only way to get Netflix and similar to stream the 4k HDR Dolby Atmos stuff outside of smart TV applications. It will silently stream the lower quality without telling you. So if you do not tinker, you must use the smart TV crap to get any chance of watching content at the capability of your hardware. Then comes the bugs. Randomly the TV and Sound system decide they cannot transfer sound anymore. It's just as if it is on mute. To be clear the connection is pc -> tv-> sound system. Using 48gps HDMI cables. The only solution is to unplug both the TV and the sound system. Reboot is not enough. Unplug one is not enough. It has to be both. Btw if you do not have the right HDMI cable you will also get lower resolution and refresh rate. Without any recourse. No information reported anywhere until you learn that pressing 7 times the green button on the LG TV remote finally gives you the details on the active HDMI connection. Oh and by default the sound setting of the TV will also decide atmos and convert it to 5.1 PCM before forwarding to the sound system, while you really want a passthrough to the sound system. Basically nothing really works. So if you do not tinker I am not sure you even get the advertised quality and features. With that said ignorance is bliss.

bumby 4y ago

We can design hardware to last, but I think we often don’t for economic reasons. My larger point is that using software just trades one well-understood failure mode for a group of unknown, hard to test failure modes, usually because it’s cheaper. I think my biggest complaint comes as a result of the data economy. You can still find “dumb” tvs but they are usually a lot more expensive than their smart variants, I assume because they cannot monetize your viewing habits. My SO convinced me to get rid of my old laser, USB interface printer. That one always worked but was old. My new WIFI enabled one requires logging into an app to use, and the USB interface maybe works 10% of the time. The app and hardware constantly require power cycling before it works. Many times it never does. One thing becomes apparent in quality engineering: often, adding more components/interfaces undermines reliability because there are often exponentially more failure modes. It feels like we’re being trained to no longer expect reliability, and the beneficiaries are not the consumers but the companies that create unnecessary interfaces to monetize data.

eternityforest 4y ago
I think that definitely applies when you have updatable software or software that interacts with something updatable, but less so for the 8 bit embedded MCU stuff typically used to replace hardware. If you, say, use a microcontroller to soft start a motor instead of making it bigger, or use a capsense pad instead of a switch(Yes they can be obnoxious, but at least they last!), you are unlikely to get into a permanent bricked state because you're not writing to flash at all. Your failure modes might increase in number as software complexity increases, but for the most part they stay ephemeral. I'm not sure exactly why experiences are so varied on things like smart TVs and WiFi printers. I have the "Smart" version of almost everything, and it usually works very well, but some people seem to have generally bad experiences. I think some of it might be because they only test on fairly generic consumer setups with the latest stock Android, no firewall, no VPN, Bluetooth never turned off, no custom DNS, gmail for the email account, etc, and more tech savvy people tend to have a few things that modern tech doesn't like. It always seems like people who tinker have problems other people don't. I also notice iOS users seem to have trouble with random gadgets and peripherals not being too happy, but a my iPhone using friends aren't a big sample size. If I was designing a product, I'd definitely be more careful, but as a user at home, I tend to avoid anything heavily customized, so I don't usually see as many of the bugs.
- bombela 4y ago
  I have a fancy OLED TV, not connected to the internet. A powerful desktop running MS Windows 10. And a fancy sound system with Dolby Atmos. First MS Windows is the only way to get Netflix and similar to stream the 4k HDR Dolby Atmos stuff outside of smart TV applications. It will silently stream the lower quality without telling you. So if you do not tinker, you must use the smart TV crap to get any chance of watching content at the capability of your hardware. Then comes the bugs. Randomly the TV and Sound system decide they cannot transfer sound anymore. It's just as if it is on mute. To be clear the connection is pc -> tv-> sound system. Using 48gps HDMI cables. The only solution is to unplug both the TV and the sound system. Reboot is not enough. Unplug one is not enough. It has to be both. Btw if you do not have the right HDMI cable you will also get lower resolution and refresh rate. Without any recourse. No information reported anywhere until you learn that pressing 7 times the green button on the LG TV remote finally gives you the details on the active HDMI connection. Oh and by default the sound setting of the TV will also decide atmos and convert it to 5.1 PCM before forwarding to the sound system, while you really want a passthrough to the sound system. Basically nothing really works. So if you do not tinker I am not sure you even get the advertised quality and features. With that said ignorance is bliss.