[OT] Was: totally satisfied :D

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 03:15:33 +0200
Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 9/18/12, Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 9/18/12, Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe at semitwist.com>
> > wrote:
> >> Heh. One thing I've learned about myself: I love to complain :) I
> >> don't like having things *to* complain about, but when I do...
> >
> > I love reading posts like these. Here's a recent one:
> > http://www.hanselman.com/blog/EverythingsBrokenAndNobodysUpset.aspx
> >
> 
> Btw who on earth develops set top box software?

Former lab monkeys who survived the brain experiments.

Funny, that *one* sentence alone and already I know exactly what you're
talking about...

> Granted I've only used
> two so far (since I switched ISPs and my triple-play service
> recently), but the software on it is such incredible garbage. How do
> they manage to create software for a specific device, while knowing
> all of its characteristics, that lags like hell? I'd really like to
> see the source code for that. How many cycles could they possibly
> waste to blit a pre-designed bitmap on the screen (like the main
> menu)?

Yup. A few months ago, we ended up just ditching cable TV entirely:

- Set-top firmware completely fubared, just like you described, and the
  company and tech people just shrugged it off and gave excuses that
  didn't make any sense at all.

- Video feeds that I could almost swear must have been MPEG *1*.
  Constant compression artifacts.

- A/V frequently out-of-sync.

- A/V frequently cutting out entirely (note this was *cable*, not
  satellite).

- Multiple service visits, only ever fixing a small minority of
  the issues, and only ever temporarily.

- Roughly $100/mo for nothing but reality shows and dodgy camerawork,
  all with *overlayed* advertisements.

- The *only* thing I liked was that, as a promo, we were getting NHK
  for a couple months, which was actually pretty cool, even though I
  barely know any of the langauge.

- Oh, and even before any of that even started happening, there was
  this:
  http://semitwist.com/articles/article/view/time-warner-cable-cannot-find-my-account

We replaced them (Time Warner in our case) with a $50 converter box and
$40 antenna (*one*-time fees), neither of which I ever actually use (I
just get DVDs from the library), and I couldn't be happier. And if I
ever want more, I can just get Netflix: $8/mo vs the cable company's
$100/mo (although Netflix's seeking sucks, and they never offer
subtitled non-dubbed alternatives for foreign stuff, which is
really annoying when you come across something with bad dubbing,
especially since it's internet so there's nothing actually preventing
them from offering it).

And it's not just cable-boxes, it's almost anything embedded. Like car
stereos: I *never* used to have *any* complaint about any car stereo
other than "The after market ones are always ugly as hell and look
like damn toys". But last time my mom got a new car, a Hyndai Elantra,
it came with one of those combo satnav/stereo units. So pretty cool,
right? And the satnav part seems to work fine (now that it's been
replaced after dying...twice). But the stereo is a barely-usable piece
of shit. Aside from over-reliance on touch-screen (a *really* dumb
fucking idea *in a CAR*), these are *some* of its problems:

- Extremely laggy UI.

- *Every* time you start the car, NO MATTER WHAT, it turns on the radio
  (or a CD if it was playing one before) and sets it to a default
  volume. Not "if the radio/CD was already playing when you turned the
  car off", but "EVERY time" period. She was told this was the car
  "being helpful". Yea, way to spin an obvious fuckup, people. At least
  I hope to hell it's a bug and not...<shudder>...deliberate.

- Then you turn it off, but five seconds later, it turns back on and
  starts playing again. Turn it off that *second* time, *then* it stays
  off.

- It never remembers your volume level after turning the car off and
  back on.

- There's no way to see what the volume is set at without changing it.

- You can't change the volume level without turning the car on.
  (Seriously, what the hell is up with this "war against POTs"?
  Variable resistors are the *perfect* volume control, and yet now
  they've become taboo and replaced by shit that doesn't even always
  work.)

- Satnav/stereo unit CANNOT be turned off without turning the *whole
  car* off.

- In order to use the satnav/stereo unit, you have to *read and respond
  to* a prompt that tells you (ready for this?) **NOT** to read and
  interact with it while driving! Uhh...WTF? I'm betting this one was due to some dumbshit lawyer or politician.

And there's even more. Honestly, if I were looking into getting a new
car, I would consider that stereo *alone* to be a deal-breaker. It's
that bad.

I miss the 80's: Devices worked and idiots didn't use computers.