Be Excellent To Each Other

That’s the Proclaimers

Me (literally) right now:

Who else made the same mistake as Grim...?

*raises two hands*

Touchscreens in cars, there's a stupid idea.

It's like the car makers know they're shit, but they have to put them in because iPads, innit. Who doesn't like iPads? So what could be better than an iPad in a car?

My car has a fairly sizeable touchscreen in it, and Seat clearly understand what a horrible technology it is for a car, because all the icons are fucking huge and they've made everything as Duplo-style as possible so that you've got half a chance of altering a setting or changing something without crashing.

Similarly with Android Auto, they put 5 big icons along the bottom of the screen and everything else is ridiculously oversized by the standards of any NOT TOTALLY FUCKING STUPID application of touchscreen technology. It's like, what's the worst thing you could possibly do with a touchscreen? Offset it to the left of the driver so he absolutely can't operate the screen and watch the road properly at the same time.

I miss the MMI in the S4, it had a good sized screen but it wasn't touch, and I'd learned very well how to operate all the controls with my left hand whilst keeping my eyes on the road.

In fact I miss the S4 actually, I might get another one. The facelift model of mine can be had for reasonable money now, and retains a streamlined version of the same MMI system. (Under £20K for a nicely specced one with reasonable miles.)

Are you frickin kidding me?

0-new car in 33 days. Amazing.

Re touchscreen, I love mine, but then I don't really try and operate it while I'm driving. I have my steering-wheel controls for that. I can see if you had the muscle memory down on a non-touchscreen interface, that might make things easier while driving, but it would annoy me when I was setting the sat nav, I think.

I have to agree - touchscreens in cars are wank. You need buttons to feel.

But having to input something on a QWERTY style keyboard with no touchscreen? The worst.

My QWERTY-style keyboard that I'm typing on right now doesn't have a touchscreen

Keyboard and mouse is clearly the way forward for cars.

Right mouse to accelerate, or brake?

Also, obviously: https://www.wired.com/2015/01/well-didn ... uper-idea/

I just wanted to tweak the bass and treble a bit this morning as Spotify outputs a bit differently to my trance from the SD cards. I found myself in a menu with a five-bar graphical equaliser (once I'd tapped on a couple of jumbo-sized icons to get there). Now each bar took up a fifth of the width of the screen, so Seat were clearly doing their best to make them as big as possible, but it's still a really crap way to do it. Then the car went over a bit of a bump and I adjusted 10KHz instead of 4KHz.

Then I stopped playing with it as it clearly wasn't safe. In the S4 I'd have had that shit nailed.

Yeah, right for accelerate I reckon.

I mean, don't adjust the bass and treble while driving, I guess?

But I can in my Puma, because it has buttons.

It also has fewer functions than a modern car. It would end up like the flight deck of a fucking space shuttle.

Does it, though? A standard new Fiesta doesn't do that much more.

I've not been in one but I'm going to guess that if there was a button, dial or switch for everything you can do on the touchscreen of a modern Fiesta it would look somewhat ridiculous.

I'm trying to think of what you can only do on the touchscreen of our Focus, and I'm pretty sure it's only the SatNav.

Oh, and the radio, like changing sources or radio stations and stuff.

I used to play Screamer with a mouse. No idea why.

In America, the Taurus certainly had some of the climate stuff on the touch screen. Front heated seats/steering wheel was in there, which wasn't great when you got in the car in the cold, turned the heated seats on, then decided it's too hot when you're driving and have to exit out of Android Auto to turn the seats back off.

What was the bike game on the Amiga that used the mouse?

Ah.. No second prize. That was good that was. Nice music too if I remember rightly.

ah yes, a frighteningly fast, uncontrollable nightmare. Thrilling but impossible.

The Focus has heating controls and all that on the touchscreen, but it also has dedicated buttons for it.

I don't understand Android Auto

I have a terrible car.

The Toyota Wish, as in "I wish I didn't have this car". Its practical but Jesus Christ.

Holy shit, she's an uggo.

Do you have a driver?

It's like a Prius got fat.

Real audiophiles don't mess with treble and bass, they like to hear the recording just as it was recorded.

Proper hi-fi amplifiers only have an on/off button and a volume control. Amirite?

Having said that, I used to have a bass canon in the boot of me old Nissan Bluebird, but my son put that in not long after he passed his test and started to borrow my car. He didn't tell me he was putting it in, so the first time I saw it I thought he was installing heavy duty armaments.

Did you mean a Yugo, coz that's a different vehicle?

Not me, for a kick off.

And I don't think he'll ever live that mistake down.

I mean, we won't let him, will we boys and girls?

I quite like the one in my company van, but it's a bugger trying to select a playlist from my iPod, it really needs Duplo sized text as I continually select the wrong one. But I can swap between radio or media player with just a button on the end of a stalk on the steering column, which is handy.

Anyway, it won't matter for much longer, when we're all moving around in autonomous vehicles, you'll just need to say Alexa/Siri/Hey Google, play 'shaddap you face' by Joe Dolce .... after which the autonomous ejector seat will chuck you out of the roof for having no taste in muzak.

If you were on the international space station and were listening to that proclaimers song, how far would you travel during the running time?

Well I know that now, obviously.

It's not exactly progress though is it? I could have achieved that in the S4 easily without taking my eyes off the road. (And to be clear here, I was on an empty road at 6am in the morning, no one approaching for the mile or so ahead I could see of me, and no one behind, so the only risk was to myself.)

I don't mind touchscreen controls where they're replicated with physical knobs and buttons (as is the case in the Leon with the climate control, air pointy direction, and all that gubbins), but when you can only perform fairly fundamental tasks through the touchscreen, it gets a bit irritating. (I accept changing bass and treble could easily wait, but it irritates me because I used to be able to do it with ease whilst on the move, and now I can't. And who the fuck wants a five-band graphical equaliser in a car on a fucking touchscreen?)

A mate of mine had a WhatsApp moan about keyless the other week as well. This was a very nice Lexus he bought brand new for big cash monies, only to have shit like this happen. As he noted a bit later on in the conversation, the trusty Vauxhall Astra he had some twenty years ago never caused him this sort of strife.

Anyone an expert on vans here? I'm looking at getting something medium-sized like a Trafic or a Transit Custom. I don't want anything older than 10 years and I don't want to spend more than £2-2.5k.

Is that asking too much?

I'd look at Trafic or Transit customs, no older than 10years old between £2k-£2.5k mate.

Or a Toyota Wish with roof bars.

There's loads though. And I'm no Expert.

Get it?

Yes.

1,000 miles, according to a cartoonist.

Myp: I like a Transit, a Ducato or a Sprinter. I do not like a Vivaro.

Thanks Grim, but a Sprinter is a bit big. I'm looking more at the Vito size.

Vanny De Vito.

I can see you with an old Tranny.

You don't look like a Sprinter to me.

955 miles.

Sorry, I didn’t see Grim... had replied. The ISS travels at 17,150 mph, and the song is 3mins 34s.

Wow.

Actually, I was wrong. It’s 1,019 miles because maths.

Vito: avoido

Best bet is a swb transit, they're actually pretty dinky and fuel efficient. Vans are tricky, they've usually had a hard life and regardless seem to be more fragile than cars in many ways.