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Writer owns car for four years before realizing you push volume button to turn it on and off
- Thread starter michael hagerty
- Start date
The article includes a photo captioned, "Remember when car radios were simple?" But I'm looking at it thinking what the hell is 'M' and 'U', and what are the numbers on this dial?
I appreciate how, from what I quickly scanned anyway, she basically blamed the designer and others rather than herself for the fact that she didn't realize or couldn't figure out how to press the on/off button, though it was clearly marked with a modern-day "power" symbol.
I'd also add that this is maybe a bit of a failure on the dealership where she bought the car in my opinion. While I've never had an equipment demo on any car I bought used, when I went in to pick up the last 2 new cars I bought, the salesman first took me around and then inside the vehicle and walked me through all electronic and mechanical systems and explained in detail how everything worked. I must admit that, though I'm a technical guy, there were a few things he showed me that weren't immediately obvious. Failing that, there are usually YouTube videos available for most anything. I'm sure she could find one on the operation of her vehicle and give it a quick watch.
I had to look it up. It's a Blaupunkt radio in an old VW Beetle. The markings make sense in the German market, but for years (decades?) Blaupunkt did not re-do the buttons for radios sold here.
M is AM in the US. (Mediumwelle: Medium wave)
U is the US FM band. (Ultrakurzwelle: Ultra short wave)
I mean...read the manual? Especially if your car is something a bit different, like a Chevy Bolt.
Also, I'm trying to remember how long it's been since I had a car radio that you turned off by turning the volume knob all the way to the left. Even my '78 Corolla was a push to turn on and off, and so's been everything since.
She claims she read the manual but it wasn't clear. Then again the modern day "Power" symbol it was marked with also wasn't clear to her. Maybe it's one of those publications where she gets paid by the article to write for them, she was short on cash so this is what she came up with?
I looked her up. She's the opinion editor for the San Luis Obispo (CA) Tribune, which is owned by the same chain that owns the Sacramento Bee.
The Sac Bee insisted I disable my ad blocker before they'd let me read the article, so instead I displayed all the gory HTML code and read it through all the tags. When you do that, you discover that the Bee's source was the Idaho Statesman, though it does also reference "sanluisobispo.com" in that mess.
I just did a quick survey around here. 4 out of 4 of my TVs use the 0/1 "universal" Power On/Off symbol on their remotes and on the physical buttons on the side of the bezel. As does the remote for the Bose sound bar attached to one of the TVs, and the remote for the Roku and the 2010-vintage Teac mini-stereo we keep in the guest bedroom. My Ford Fusion has the symbol on the volume button of the radio/info system, but it's directly under the marking "VOL". My iPhone has it on-screen, if I depress the power and Volume-Up buttons together and hold for a couple of seconds. My previous phone, a 5-y/o Moto android, is the same way. 5 of the 5 computers, 4 of the 4 tablets, and the newer of my printers all use that symbol.
This is not new symbology, freshly arrived on a UFO from Uranus, nor is it an atypical marking. It should, by now, be pretty obvious to anyone who hasn't just emerged from a Rip Van Winkle-length coma.
OTOH, none of my three receivers (all Sonys, circa 1973, 1981 and 1991) have that 0/1 symbol on their power controls, nor do any of my tabletop radios or appliances. The common thread is that the symbol is on devices made in (about) the last 20 years, and is nowhere to be found on older equipment except when something originated in Germany. (Find a later 20th century VW, Audi, BMW or MBZ and you're likely to spot that symbol on their radio.)
Ultimately, the author should bear the responsibility for her ignorance. This isn't some obscure "set-once-and-forget" configuration setting, it's a damn radio on/off switch, and any 10 year old could have told her how to work it. In fact, anyone who drives a car for 4 years and doesn't have the epiphany "Gee, wonder if I should try pushing this button" maybe should have her keys confiscated.
I just did a quick survey around here. 4 out of 4 of my TVs use the 0/1 "universal" Power On/Off symbol on their remotes and on the physical buttons on the side of the bezel. As does the remote for the Bose sound bar attached to one of the TVs, and the remote for the Roku and the 2010-vintage Teac mini-stereo we keep in the guest bedroom. My Ford Fusion has the symbol on the volume button of the radio/info system, but it's directly under the marking "VOL". My iPhone has it on-screen, if I depress the power and Volume-Up buttons together and hold for a couple of seconds. My previous phone, a 5-y/o Moto android, is the same way. 5 of the 5 computers, 4 of the 4 tablets, and the newer of my printers all use that symbol.
This is not new symbology, freshly arrived on a UFO from Uranus, nor is it an atypical marking. It should, by now, be pretty obvious to anyone who hasn't just emerged from a Rip Van Winkle-length coma.
OTOH, none of my three receivers (all Sonys, circa 1973, 1981 and 1991) have that 0/1 symbol on their power controls, nor do any of my tabletop radios or appliances. The common thread is that the symbol is on devices made in (about) the last 20 years, and is nowhere to be found on older equipment except when something originated in Germany. (Find a later 20th century VW, Audi, BMW or MBZ and you're likely to spot that symbol on their radio.)
Ultimately, the author should bear the responsibility for her ignorance. This isn't some obscure "set-once-and-forget" configuration setting, it's a damn radio on/off switch, and any 10 year old could have told her how to work it. In fact, anyone who drives a car for 4 years and doesn't have the epiphany "Gee, wonder if I should try pushing this button" maybe should have her keys confiscated.
The Idaho Statesman is also a McClatchy newspaper. Stephanie Finucane is a Central Coast native and worked in Santa Barbara and Santa Maria before taking the San Luis Obispo job.
It looks like McClatchy (which is not the "old" McClatchy---the hedge fund that bought them out also bought the rights to use the name) republishes any "universal" or "evergreen" stuff like this article across its 29 newspapers in 14 states.
How often these days that you buy an item and find it comes without any manual
or instructions. Electronics seem to be the worst offenders. How is one suppose
to ascertain the proper use and operation of these items??? Osmosis?????
or instructions. Electronics seem to be the worst offenders. How is one suppose
to ascertain the proper use and operation of these items??? Osmosis?????
Very similar to the Bay Area News Group ("BANG"), which acquired the assets of Knight-Ridder, including the formerly-esteemed San Jose Mercury News. They've pureed any local distinctions that used to exist between the Merc and the other Bay Area newspapers (e.g., Oakland Tribune, Marin Independent-Journal, San Mateo Times). Except for a front-page sensationalistic local story or two, the papers are all the same, the better to spread the costs of whatever content they still carry. Sad, but not an uncommon story. Just ask anyone who used to work for (or subscribe to) a Gannett paper. Whenever the "Private Equity" guys show up, you can make book that they'll squeeze every last penny out of the corpse before leaving it to rot.
Nope. Other "O" word. Online.
Seriously, the owner manual for just about everything is there.
I'm at my desk in the newsroom right now, so I just lifted up one of the speakers for my computer. It's a Logitech Z130. Enter that into Google with "manual" and presto:
User manual Logitech Z130 (English - 3 pages)
Manual Logitech Z130. View the Logitech Z130 manual for free or ask your question to other Logitech Z130 owners.
Agreed, but there's generally a URL or QR code somewhere in the package that will get you to a web page where the manual (such as it is) can be downloaded as a PDF file. Which is better than the "manual" I'm holding in my hand (as I type this) for a mini-boombox. Unfolded, it's literally the length (fingertip to base) of my hand, no wider, one sheet thick, and the reverse side is the French version. Each side is printed in about 3-pt type. You need a magnifying glass to realize how useless it is.
BANG is actually owned by Digital First Media, which is owned by Alden Global Capital. If there's a Death Star in local newspapers, it's Alden---and they're diversifying:
The vulture fund that picked American newspapers apart has a new target
<p>It’s late November, and nighttime temperatures have dropped below freezing in Christiansburg, Virginia, a town tucked in a valley between Blacksburg and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Sarah Rupp, an aide at Belview Elementary School, learned from a kindergartner’s grandparent that eviction notices...
www.cjr.org
When I taught computer-skills classes to journalism students at the University of Missouri in the late 1980s, I found that the photography students were most adept: they feared nothing and easily dealt with any form of new technology. The news-editorial students (i.e. the ones in the newspaper sequence) had the most difficulty. Broadcast sequence students were in-between. So it doesn't surprise me that a newspaper's editorial writer might have challenges with something that's very basic. For some reason, for many of those folks, the ability to figure out such functions just doesn't seem well-developed. The only professionals that I've found to be worse in this regard are lawyers. I think the situation is getting better as younger people come into the various professions and raise the average level of technological savvy. For newspapers, this might not be happening so much because, quite frankly, journalism is ever less attractive as a career. The jobs are gone and the ones that are left are poorly compensated.
That’s why I read the San Mateo Daily Journal and sometimes the Daily Post when I lived there. They do local stories and are locally owned.
Recently I purchased an RDS encoder...it was shipped directly from China, and went through Customs --- and ended up being re-packaged. When it arrived, all the accessories were there.....EXCEPT....the INSTRUCTIONS!!
A quick check online got me the setup manual (all of 2 pages....!!); luckily, this unit uses the same motherboard as an encoder made in Slovenia.....I went to THEIR website, and downloaded a full-blown manual (36 pages!!).....
Agree with Prescott Joe --- electronic devices seem to stand out as having the least literature included when you make the purchase.
Again, the internet can be a life-saver in this case!!!
A quick check online got me the setup manual (all of 2 pages....!!); luckily, this unit uses the same motherboard as an encoder made in Slovenia.....I went to THEIR website, and downloaded a full-blown manual (36 pages!!).....
Agree with Prescott Joe --- electronic devices seem to stand out as having the least literature included when you make the purchase.
Again, the internet can be a life-saver in this case!!!
We moved to Oakland in 2000. For a while we subscribed to the Oakland Tribune. Already, under BANG's predecessor, the paper, once storied under Robert Maynard, was much diminished. There were still a few bright spots, mostly columnists, and we could still get some sense of the community that we have moved to. There were even TV listings for "Soul Beat", an Oakland-only cable TV channel that's indescribable, but had a good sense of community news. Chauncey Bailey, who was later murdered while walking on a street downtown as a consequence of his reporting on Your Black Muslim Bakery and some of the shenanigans there, was a Tribune reporter and also appeared frequently on Soul Beat. Certainly some of the concerns widespread below Interstate 580 weren't present in the hills, but I wanted to understand my community. Even in a less-than-healthy state, the Tribune did help to do that.
But the economic base ultimately wasn't there. Even at a subscription rate of $10 a month, we finally decided it wasn't worth it anyway. Much later, BANG swallowed up the Merc and the Contra Costa Times. The latter was merged with the Tribune and a couple of other titles to become the East Bay Times, no longer based in Oakland. This actually caused a legal problem for Oakland city government, whose charter required legal notices to be published in a paper that was based in Oakland. We actually had to vote on a charter amendment in 2020 to remove that restriction because there was no publication remaining in Oakland that met the charter's requirements!
Also swallowed up was our neighborhood newspaper, the Montclarion, which had been under the umbrella of the Contra Costa Times. There's no need for us to have the East Bay Times now; the Montclarion is delivered free each week and contains reprints of what local reporting there is in the East Bay Times. The Montclarion's bread and butter was real-estate advertising; there's much less of that these days even with a hot real-estate market, and the editorial content that's wrapped around that advertising is written by a bot, which BANG fully discloses.
There is a website run like a charitable foundation (the Oaklandside, an offshot of a similar Berkeley effort) and there are a few freelance journalists who run websites, but they all seem to lack the objectivity that a full-fledged newspaper had.
Edit: Corrected date for Oakland charter amendment. It was Measure R, March 2020.
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Have you ever read the East Bay Express? Wouldn’t that have met the charter requirements, it’s published in Oakland & runs legal notices: Legal Notices | East Bay Express | Oakland, Berkeley & Alameda
From the city attorney's ballot-measure description: "(1) the newspaper must be printed .and published in the City of Oakland; and (2) the newspaper must have a minimum daily circulation of at least 25,000 within the City. No newspaper that currently is circulated in Oakland meets all of the current Charter requirements." Reference: Oakland, California, Measure R, Official City Newspaper (March 2020)
(Apologies for going off-topic but the explanation was necessary in this case)
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