That reminds me of an incident that happened to me with my first new car. It had built in fog lights. But I don't use them often so didn't know one was out. Yeah, I should have checked. Took it in for inspection and they tell me a fog light is out. Well, it's already there so Yeah, go ahead and replace. $20 for bulb which I could get for $5 and $20 labor to put in which is like what 2 minutes? Pissed me off. Oh, then he told me if I had put the plastic covers on the fog lights (yeah, they came with covers) it would have passed no problem. What? So having the covers on you don't have to check the fog lights? Bizarre. Well, next time I checked and a bulb was out and I replaced it myself. Quite easy and much cheaper.
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Does anyone else find this disturbing?
- Thread starter Chuck(G)
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Chuck(G)
25k Member
I'm proud that I was flexible enough to replace the HID headlight bulbs on my Gen2 Prius. The shop manual has you disassembling half the front end--the YT gal from Luscious Garage demonstrated that it could be done without the hassle. Next is repairing the RABS module on my '92 F150...
VERAULT
Veteran Member
Disc brakes on most things although I have done drums (my GMC sierra had rear drums before the tree smashed it and my 77 Honda motocycle has a rear drum... there were more but I forget) before but I am not the best at adjusting them (or giving them periodic necessary adjustments).
VERAULT
Veteran Member
Bureacracy is in place to prevent progress my friend. Dont rationalize it.. You might hurt yourself.
Agent Orange
Veteran Member
'92 Ford F-150 kind of reminds me of my father-in-law's truck who passed away last November at 92. His '89 4WD Chevy pickup is still in the garage with about 44K on the odometer. The longest trip it ever made was from Alpena to Gaylord and back, about 200 miles round trip when it was new. The rest rest of the mileage was for chasing down good prices for carrots and sugar beets during hunting season, as well as countless trips out to his hunting 40. The point being, other than a few tune-ups and numerous flats from just sitting in the garage, nothing ever goes wrong with that truck. Kind of a PITA when your out in the hunting area as you have to climb out and physically lock the hubs for the 4-wheel mode. That truck has never been serviced outside of warranty either. All those trucks from that era were okay.
VERAULT
Veteran Member
My friends had trucks with manual locking hubs.. not a big deal in my opinion. Less to go wrong. I have said it before but I would love to buy a car with just airconditioning (WITH KNOBS OR LEVERS) and MANUAL EVERYTHING (transmission included). ..so nothing breaks... No radio because I HATE these new touch screens... I can go to crutchfield.com and buy a good radio and install it myself. Give me KNOBS! Touch screens are for people who wank themselves too much....... Just look at the motions.
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vwestlife
Veteran Member
He probably meant these kinds of covers. So many people leave them on for decoration and never actually use the lights that they don't bother to test if they actually work.
It's just annoying. I would have put the covers on if I had known that. Got pulled over once and the officer claimed my fog lights were too bright. They were white vs the normal amber. But they came stock that way and I told him that. He grumbled and let me go. I have seen folk with misadjusted fog lights though and it can be annoying. They are supposed to be adjusted so they illuminate close in front of your car. Where the fog is.
I don't find them overly helpful.
VERAULT
Veteran Member
I havent used foglights on a vehicle that is newer than the early 90's but Back then they were fine. Unfortunately as you mentioned the 90's led to people changing stock bulbs for horribly bright ones or colored ones.. I admit I tried a few in the 90s but learned my lesson stock is best.
Not sure on that. I had a 91 Explorer. First 4x4 I ever had. Really liked it but wish I had gone with the 4 door, but didn't realize it at the time that it's hard to get into the back for some folk. But that's another story. It had auto-locking hubs which was nice. Really enjoyed that vehicle. Till the nylon hubs started to wear and would not hold in place and would slip every so often. Well, took it to the shop as I didn't know anything about replace this stuff. Quoted $600 to fix them. I think he also mentioned I could go with brass but they would not be auto-locking for about a third of that. So I did it myself. I can get out and lock hubs. Most times you know when you'll need em. Was fine after that and those lasted beyond when I sold the vehicle to my neighbor's son.
Nah, these were just grey plastic rectangular covers. No wording on them. Kinda dumb to leave them on. Ok, if you're off-roading like in those pics I guess you'd leave them on maybe.He probably meant these kinds of covers. So many people leave them on for decoration and never actually use the lights that they don't bother to test if they actually work.
Agent Orange
Veteran Member
Yeah, things change. I bought a new '01 GMC Yukon XL with 4WD. It was designed to lock-up on the fly which was nice. One of the features was a low range which you had to come to a complete stop to engage. You just pushed a button on the dash. If it was in low, and the transmission was in 1st, that thing could climb a telephone pole. Actually, I never used it. My granddaughter wound up with it and she just got rid it - 200K+.
Chuck(G)
25k Member
When I bought the F-150, it had the 5.0L V8 (good--that engine went into a lot of vehicles), but the electronic automatic transmission. I was a little nervous about the latter, but it's held up nicely. The 2-4 WD button quit working years ago; turned out to be a bad rubber bumper in the actuator. Replaced that with a bit of hose and it's been fine ever since. About the biggest thing I've ever done is to replace one of the in-tank fuel pumps. That was more awkward than difficult. I wisely opted for a Delco-sourced unit rather than one of the Chinese imports. The vacuum lines have been replaced with silicone hose.
I've reworked the computer (failing electrolytic caps), so the RABS unit should be a shoo-in. I should also replace the serpentine belt--I've got a set of new OEM pulleys to go along with it.
I like vehicles that can be easily repaired. I wouldn't know where to start with my wife's Prius, however.
I've reworked the computer (failing electrolytic caps), so the RABS unit should be a shoo-in. I should also replace the serpentine belt--I've got a set of new OEM pulleys to go along with it.
I like vehicles that can be easily repaired. I wouldn't know where to start with my wife's Prius, however.
VERAULT
Veteran Member
LEt me guess you had to drop the gas tank? My 89 acura has an access door to the fuel pump behind the rear trunk panel. I always thought that was smart.
Eudimorphodon
Veteran Member
The article mentions this in passing, but I wouldn't underestimate the importance of the fact that "search" functions are so tightly integrated into modern UIs that hierarchical organization really might not matter for a casual user. If your mental model is "go to the navigation bar and start typing the name of/a keyword likely to be in the thing I want and wait for it to pop up in the choices" then you're not going to care about the underlying storage organization.
(What I sort of love about this is it's kind of evidence that CLIs are actually the "correct" way to drive a computer; asking directly for what you want can be way more efficient than poking around for it...)
Here's the thing about GUIs; the ones we old fogies grew up with were largely engineered around the concept of taking a real-world paradigm that the designer of the UI has reason to believe "everyone" is familiar with and wrapping it around what the computer's actually doing. This is why your old computer's "Desktop" has "folders" that are drawn to look like actual folders, why document icons look like pieces of paper, "file cabinets" are sometimes literally referenced as analogs to drives, etc; these were all things someone adapting from the old way of organizing an office would actually be familiar with. Skeuomorphism like this serves a legit purpose when you're in the middle of a brute-force technological transition, but once you've actually accomplished said transition it seems kind of silly to assume that the analogies you chose for the process should be written in stone and persist forever.
Moving from rigidly hierarchical filing systems to "query-driven" record storage and retrieval systems is by no means automatically a bad thing if it makes the organization and retrieval of information more natural for the users, so it seems pretty backwards to call people who grow up using that paradigm "dumb" for not intuitively knowing how to operate the older one specifically designed to emulate an even older and mostly obsolete "physical" record storage and retrieval system. Seems like it's bit analogous to getting on the case of someone who grew up in the 1950's for being confused when asked to drive one of those 1890's cars that were literally horseless carriages and used some kind of tiller arrangement to steer like pulling on a horse's reigns instead of a wheel. Unless they lived on a farm they probably have a reasonable excuse for not being totally up to speed on horse-centric operation paradigms.
resman
Veteran Member
I just bought a 2022 Toyota Tacoma with the latest anti-theft device: a manual transmission. One of the last trucks you can buy with a stick - I think the Jeep pickup also comes with a manual.
Back to the original topic: My son is a freshman in college this year. They all got iPads for their schoolwork. I don't even know where files are stored on an iPad. Interestingly, I noticed when he and his friends were in middle school, back around 2015, they had an odd collection of knowledge. For instance, they all had a number of VPNs loaded on their computers to circumvent the blocked sites from the school's network. They had no real idea how it worked, but someone figured it out and shared the knowledge, much like script-kiddies. They also used the search feature for accessing files on their laptops. And from the keyboard - no mousing around to the search icon, all through hot keys. In some ways its actually more efficient than digging through folders to find a file. A different paradigm to interact with a computer, I suppose.
Back to the original topic: My son is a freshman in college this year. They all got iPads for their schoolwork. I don't even know where files are stored on an iPad. Interestingly, I noticed when he and his friends were in middle school, back around 2015, they had an odd collection of knowledge. For instance, they all had a number of VPNs loaded on their computers to circumvent the blocked sites from the school's network. They had no real idea how it worked, but someone figured it out and shared the knowledge, much like script-kiddies. They also used the search feature for accessing files on their laptops. And from the keyboard - no mousing around to the search icon, all through hot keys. In some ways its actually more efficient than digging through folders to find a file. A different paradigm to interact with a computer, I suppose.
Agent Orange
Veteran Member
I just ran into this on another forum and it's disgusting. I can't imagine anyone doing this to their body. My first through was it was a phoney deal. Hope you've had your lunch - here it is.
VERAULT
Veteran Member
This kid could benefit from some bullying. No seriously. If this was my kid I would do everything in my power to send him into the military (with instructions on not taking it easy)..... This is what happens when everyone gets a ribbon and taught that everybody is a unique snowflake... I cant even look at the picture its making me sick.
Jove
Experienced Member
The kids didn't ask for the ribbons, their parents did. Their grandparents thought maybe kids shouldn't be beaten quite as often. Their parents thought kids shouldn't work 80 hour weeks in factories.
In my day, if we wanted a computer, we had to invent binary math.
At some point adults complained about their kid's hair style, regardless of generation.
The world changes. Ignoring the details, the complaints so far sound an awful lot like your dad's complaints, and his dad's complaints, or his dad's complaints.
The only thing we agree on with previous generations is that following generations are going to ruin the world.
Unpopular opinion I'm sure.
In my day, if we wanted a computer, we had to invent binary math.
At some point adults complained about their kid's hair style, regardless of generation.
The world changes. Ignoring the details, the complaints so far sound an awful lot like your dad's complaints, and his dad's complaints, or his dad's complaints.
The only thing we agree on with previous generations is that following generations are going to ruin the world.
Unpopular opinion I'm sure.
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VERAULT
Veteran Member
Thedrip I am sure you are right about the ribbon.. its how parents ruin thier kids sports by being TOO involved. But regardless.. it led to a lazy entitlement attitude and general disinterest in real world things.
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