Ever driven the same car or used the same camera or power drill for 8-10 years and thought: "I wish all these buttons and levers were suddenly in different places and did different things"?

@ptoothfish
But if they didn't periodically resize the keyboard buttons on touchscreens and round off the corners to minimise the chances of your hitting the letters cleanly there'd be no opportunity for the mandatory AI autofill to tell your doctor you want a repeat prescription for a Palaeozoic armoured fish.

@cascheranno @ptoothfish I mean this is pretty much what I *have* done because have you seen cars these days??? My 2009 Pontiac slowly rots on the street while I walk and bike because I am *not* buying one of these rolling enshittifications.

@ptoothfish I have in fact thought that about a car, but in that case I started so thinking within a few days of acquiring the car and spent the entire 8 to 10 years continuing to think it.

@ptoothfish I've imagined a "Twilight Zone"-esque short about a man who every day wakes up in an alternate timeline where everything's almost the same except that all devices have completely different (often absurd) controls which he has to relearn every day. He ends up living in the Canadian wilderness in a log cabin he built himself.

@ptoothfish That's just to keep you alert My brothers once tried to establish a system, where the F1 key would alternately trigger HELP or Format

@cascheranno @DirtyAnCom @ptoothfish

In principle I like putting big screens in cars. Then one can have a nice large map, and show other relevant information. And also do the "big" settings one usually does once or rarely - while not driving.

But for everything which has to be controlled either regularly while driving or is time critical there has to be an other appropriate (easy, takes practically no attention) way for doing the command.

@ptoothfish I have a 2024 Snodgras Rapier and a 2024 Snodgras Defender and it would be so nice if the steering wheel controls were identical, the dash controls were identical, the dashboard instrument placement were identical, and so on. Sadly the Snodgras Motor Company has no concept of uniformity in controls. It also doesn't seem to believe there is value in building common parts in bulk.

@ptoothfish I always think about how much "cleaner" the car would look if, for example, there was just one pedal which opened a series of menus hiding functions like "brake"

@ptoothfish :spittake: God I laughed so hard at this. And then imagined mandatory drill upgrades that moved the power button each time. And then laughed some more.

@tanquist @ptoothfish I dread the day when we're forced onto the new outlook. Been toggling that toggle on every computer I've used for years now.

@ptoothfish Yes, all the time, but I'm left-handed and chronically cranky and I prefer motorcycles.

@ptoothfish I'm looking at YOU KDE Plasma and Fedora... KDE Fedora 42 forced 6.5 on users like a normal update and it totally broke the start menu's search logic, which is the core workflow for 99% of KDE users...

@ptoothfish

Not have I wished my drill would take pictures of everything I do, so the manufacturer could merge my designs with others and sell them through “AI”.

@Szescstopni

@nicelady @ptoothfish That's not as far fetched as it sounds.
One Snodgras has a button to enable a driver convenience.
One Snodgras has it on the touch screen.
I tested another Snodgras that had it one or two levels deep on the touch screen.
The driver convenience I believe to have been intentionally made difficult to get to in order to upsell to a more expensive Snodgras model.

@ptoothfish Worse is when you’ve had a car for 12 years and realize it has a feature you never knew it had!

@ptoothfish I‘d ask *which* operating system, but, well… ehm…

@jonasgraphie @cascheranno @ptoothfish I like a nice screen for maps, too, and that's about it. But, also, I do feel like I was "smarter" before having GPS constantly telling me where to go. At one time, I had a real estate license (hated being a real estate agent and didn't last long), and knowing how to get around my city by memory was a sense of pride. Ultimately, I prefer just a phone in a mount for navigation. Phones have gotten pretty big. Heads-up displays were a concept I really digged, too.

But all the other things, like climate control and radio, are way less attention-grabbing when there is a physical button. It feels safer when you can just reach down and turn a dial or press a button without taking my eyes off the road.

I have committed to only driving used cars that are 20+ years old, because I don't want all the tracking and like the physicality of them. Plus, old cars are easier to fix and maintain, oneself. #RightToRepair

@ptoothfish actually the operating system need not change other than improved capabilities and performance. User Interfaces generally don’t need to change other than correcting mistakes. Applications changing the UI obviously either got it wrong the first time or are just trying to justify cost increase for the same functionality.

@GiffordJames i had one in mind but everyone hating on every operating system has been insightful

@virtualbri This sounds like a Hitchhiker’s Guide bit. @ptoothfish