Goofed Home

We have an old Prius we rarely used that has needed a new battery for…I’m too embarrassed to say. It’s more of a project than it sounds like for several reasons.

First, without a working battery, the rear hatch does not open normally. The only way to open it is to crawl through the interior into the back, then find a small opening with a manual release, then figure out how to get it to actually release. And if you don’t apply upward force on the door while you do that, it will immediately latch itself closed again. Adding to the fun, the release is below the rear deck, so you have to lift it out of the way, when you would prefer to be sitting on it. It is awkward.

Second, getting to the battery requires you to remove a lot more than anyone would reasonably expect. To take out the small section of floor above it, you first half to remove the main floor and the storage tray underneath it. Then you finally have access to the battery. You have to unscrew the contacts and the bracket the holds it in place down inside a narrow well that’s just big enough or the battery. It does not easily fit ratchets or even screwdrivers at the angles where you need them. It is also awkward.

Third, it’s a simple thing, but lifting a car battery out of a narrow hole when you have nothing to hold onto is surprisingly difficult. The battery that was in there no longer had any kind of a lifting strap, so I had to lift it out by pressing my fingertips around the sides of it. It was awkward and also somewhat painful.

Fourth, lifting in the new battery was easy, but putting everything back together was every bit as much fun as it was t take it apart. See “Second” above.

It would have all been a lot easier if I weren’t 65 and seriously overweight. I’m still fairly strong, but I am not nearly as flexible as I used to be and I don’t fit into small spaces well.

I wasn’t at all sure the car would start, even with a new battery, but it did start right up. Now I just have to do some basic cleaning and I can take it to CarMax to see what they’ll give me for it.

I’m claiming victory, if only a small one.

My other car is a Subaru Outback. It is the car that was designed by engineers. And it is wonderful.

Every technical aspect has been thought through in every direction until it made the most sense. Everything from the functioning of the drivetrain through the style and positioning of the readouts provide a lot of useful information without being cluttered. The seats are comfortable and the control are egonomic. Things are easy to access, both inside and outside.

It handles like a much smaller car, but it’s wide enough to lean into corners without reducing traction on the inside tires. There is plenty of power and the symmetric all-wheel drive puts it wherever it needs to go. The active safety features provide useful guardrails and emergency backup to the driver, and they make long-distance driving easier and more comfortable. It even gets surprisingly good fuel efficiency.

Finally, I was once in a really bad accident with my previous Outback. A driver T-boned me, in the middle of a busy intersection, right on the passenger door, while doing around 50 mph. It rolled the car two full times, and it only stopped because it hit a van while vertical and bounced off the side.

The outside of the car was thoroughly destroyed.bbThe passenger compartment was untouched, except for all the windows breaking. The airbags kept everything firmly in place instead of flailing around. The curtain airbags, in particular, kept my head from bouncing off the pavement through the broken side window as it rolled.

When it finally stopped, my passenger and I were a little dizzy, but otherwise perfectly fine. Our most serious injury was an eighth inch cut on my hand from a piece of glass. We received immediate medical attention, but after thorough exams, they were surprised to admit that we were not injured. We walked away from it. Needless to say, I replaced that car with the exact same model.

Subaru has consistently added new technology as an option, then made it standard after it proved itself. That’s how they have acquired all-around disc brakes, symmetric all-wheel drive, anti-lock braking, “Eyesight” collision avoidance, and any number of other small, but useful features. While other car companies win awards for design, Subaru has won a lot of awards for their engines and drivetrains. Engineers.

I think that’s a pretty big assumption, I think if you asked most engineers what ux research says about most design patterns they wouldn’t know, and theyd have to go and research stuff most designers could tell you off the batt

The three mile island catastrophe was largely a UI design problem that happened because they failed to consider a human had to operate and respond to the problems presented by the control room’s interface. Engineers were involved in the project, I’m pretty confident designers weren’t.

At the end of the day we both want the same thing. But I feel user hostile design patterns are as much implemented by engineers chasing costs as demanded by management as they are by designers making things shiner for marketing (like massive car touch screens, which are much cheaper to manufacture than proper physical controls, and literally any designer could tell you as soon as proposed that thats gonna kill people), and I guarantee you, both would jump at the chance to make something they think is actually just a good thing without someone over them ruining everything about it

No one goes to school excited to produce a return on investment to shareholders, be it engineering school or design school

What company would willingly still be on 10? It might not yet be completely EoL, but it’s coming, and any company that hasn’t even started the migration to 11 yet is just negligent at this point imo

My company runs almost exclusively on 10. We have a planned migration and are staged. But until we need to we are avoiding 11 until absolutely necessary because it has led to instability on any system we’ve been forced to migrate.

All because our clients do not allow remote access from Linux, otherwise we’d be on a Debian build our internal only computers run.

If I got a satire post from the perspective of a Claudia de la Cruz voter I would giggle and kick my feet like a five-year old at Disneyland.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but generally I think the worst of it stays out of the satire comments. At least, let’s hope it does this time.

Ohhh I get it now, cool! I don’t think I would’ve even expected such a thing to federate through, if I’d realized what it was. If that gets working eventually it’ll be awesome, but I’m already pretty impressed as it is. Nice!

Plenty of blame to go around for that one

I didn’t think it was that bad - just too derivative. For the most part it felt like they just took Suits scripts and changed some names.

I did enjoy that it felt a little “friendlier” than Suits though.

I was hoping it would get a season 2 - I think it would have found its legs.

Isn’t it supposed to be a free clinic?

It’s the ER room at a major Pittsburgh hospital. Definitely not free. Current season has a storyline related to how expensive it is.

A mix of sweet and hot Italian sausage. Peppers and onions were done in the wok to get some char on them.
One of these is pickled sweet pepper relish I made last year. Fries were twice fried like Five Guys. I didn’t tell my wife that. As she started eating them she said “this needs malt vinegar” and I knew I had won. I got her some malt vinegar. I was out of provolone so I went with cheddar.

Cost per person $4.35 Cost at street fair: $24-$35

Don’t worry.

Yummo