May 18, 2021

Yesteryear
One year ago today: May 18, 2020, failed thermal experiment.
Five years ago today: May 18, 2016, the Clewiston Goodwill.
Nine years ago today: May 18, 2012, somebody sues Facebook.
Random years ago today: May 18, 2009, Hewlett-Packard sucks.

           The first gripe this morning is GPS, which told me the specialist clinic I needed was 143 miles away. I probably would have chosen Miami and visited JZ if I had known it was really 195 miles. Hello from Deerfield Beach, not a place to visit before you turn 160. It was a grueling four-hour drive and these medical tests are not all that entertaining. So today, instead of a recounting of events ( I hear Biden just hates that phrase) I’m going to tell you a tale from the trailer court, a tale of how millennials can make you run out of gas on the highway—and take no blame for it.

           Would you fly in an airplane that had all the instruments designed by people who were not pilots, had no experience in instrument design, and where there was no coordination between what any of the dials are displaying? Of course not. But that is exactly what you are doing when you get into a driverless car. In a regular car, all of the components have evolved over time to work together as a system. The design teams knew each other and each held the other in check. Then along comes the digital era and the first casualties are coordination and responsibility. When a driverless car hits a stationary object, the entire concept is flawed at the most, absolute most, fundamental level.
           As an aside, here is another design “flaw”, the insulated sandwich bag. Notice how I have been able to repurpose it into a useful article for burning twigs in the back yard. No thanks to the design team, it fits three Buds and an icepack quite nicely. Now, back to our tragedy.

           So, how does the squad of Tyler, Brandon, Matthew, Joshua, Justin, Jacob, and ilk make you both run out of gas and get away with it? That’s what we’ll be looking at today. To begin with, these people do not know each other and none of them are or know any professional drivers. Tesla’s recent company weenie roast has shown that as far as they are concerned, a display that looks right is just as on fleek as one that works right. Tyler designed the dash board. It’s a beauty, looks like a mantel clock. Brandon designs steering wheels and Matthew designs car seats. Now, unless the steering wheel is in the upright position and the seat slid back, you cannot get in or out of the vehicle, which is what Tyler was doing when designing the dash. He doesn't get paid to move seats forward. Enter Joshua, who designs fuel gauges, and he’s studied “math” (but it’s really just arithmetic). What could go wrong?
           Josh’s fuel gauge is digital, so it displays the remaining distance that can be traveled with the volume of gas in the tank. He sets this at 35 units, meaning the display will beep a warning when, as an example, there are enough gallons left to drive 35 miles. In isolation, that works fine. But take notice, Josh coded nothing about gallons and miles, he only coded 35. That cannot be changed or set, its primary design goal is to collect Josh a paycheck. WCGW?

           None of these guys know each other or even went to the same schools. They are not automotive engineers, scientists, drivers, mechanics, nor are they programmers. And I got ten bucks says none of them are cautious, courteous, above average drivers, either. They are C+ coders for whom “programmer” is a euphemism. They are nothing distantly like programmers because they are just not smart enough to know you have to be an expert on a topic before you can program it—a condition not required by mere coders.
           In fact, they only trait or training they have in common is display design, the type you see on video games. Enter Justin, who designs the dash readout. There is a way, while you are driving, to operate the buttons and levers so it resets this readout to metric. It’s a mystery, not explained in the manual, but no sweat for Justin, who does not design manuals. You don’t notice the reset until the next time the temperature reads in Celsius. We’re getting to that, but WCGW?

Picture of the day.
Library, Stuttgart.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
           This metric readout cannot be reset on the fly. You have to pull off the freeway, find a safe spot, park, and disengage the transmission. How likely are you to do that, you will just leave it until you get time. Let’s say you are driving between Vero Beach and Palm Beach, where the gas stations are more than 30 miles apart. Remember the non-team of Brandon and Matthew. When the steering wheel is lowered to driving position and the seat is moved forward so you can reach the pedals, the steering wheel blocks your view of the fuel gauge. No problem as Jacob, the level 99 warrior, by now figuring you can't see the gas gauge, has coded an alarm that bing-bongs when you have 35 units driving distance remaining. If you hear the alarm, it is time for gas, no need to see the needle. (Here’s a pic of the old Desert Inn and Yeehaw Junction, still between demolishment and restoral.) Back to our story.

           Think about it. The combination of dash, alarm, gauge, seat, wheel, and arithmetic, this is what in the digital era comprises “teamwork”. These guys are proud of themselves and the employee of the month parking stalls. Here’s how they just shafted you. Say you are driving 15 miles south of Port Lucie, halfway between gas stations. You hear the gas alarm. You have 35 miles to get to a station, but then you notice the outside temperature is 18°C. Your panel has been bleeped to metric. That means you don’t have 35 miles of gas left, you have 35 kilometers, that is, 21 miles.

           You are not out of the weeds yet. You see, the GPS was also coded by millennials. That shows the distance to the next off-ramp, not the next gas station. The road signs have not been updated since 1990. If you stop to think about it, this millennial system is not just fraught with senseless, inconsiderate glitches, it actually works together to make sure if you do run out of gas for the above reasons, it will do so at a maximum distance from any gas station. And that is the system these unthinking millennials have created for the past three decades. And it is about to descend upon their heads, wholesale. You see, once my generation passes and they take over, they will be reduced to pointing fingers at each other.
           My guess is, taking stock of their educational standing, they will resort to a corrupt form of “jury” system where they will assign blame for upcoming “digital disasters” by majority rule. That’s most of it for today, except to say I claim to be first to define the scenario and we need a snappy term for digital disaster, a catch-phrase that is more suitable and insulting.
           Oh, don’t worry about giving me the credit. I know I’m a lonely voice in the wilderness. Just like I was when warning against database abuse, Google, Facebook, and system upgrades. And so on. Today’s story is hypothetical. Remember that next time an oil tanker hits an island in the middle of the ocean, nearby where an airliner just disappeared during a power failure caused by a pipeline hack.

Last Laugh