The Dumb Side Of Technology

How many times you told a machine "how stupid" it was? How much technology are you surrounding with these days? This is a quick rant about few situations I've found myself involved: enjoy!

What's the difference between a Rolex and an Apple Watch? When Apple's servers are down, a Rolex still tells time. pic.twitter.com/4z5sNjEOLC

— Jonathan Stark (@jonathanstark) July 27, 2015

The one with the light sensor

This is the most hilarious story I could tell these days. I've found an office (it's just a room in a renewed building) that's so sophisticated and full of sensors, that I have nothing to do when I get into the room. The conditioner and the lights switch on thanks to a sensor!
"so what's the problem?" you ask? I have a projector and there's no bloody sensor switch so I can't see anything because as soon as I move the light goes on again. More over, the sensor activates also the conditioner, and what about the window? ... well, there is one, but I cannot open it.
They'll never come back with a solution, I'll probably change office because not being in control of keeping lights switched off in your own, freaking expensive office, is very frustrating!
This is also how the conversation with office management went:

• me: I need to keep the light off
• they: Sir, we have highly automated office and a green policy, we have sensors for lights
• me: I have said, I need to keep the light switched off
• they: why would you need that Sir?
• me: I have a projector, I can't see a thing with such bright illumination
• they: I see, we'll ask about it and let you know how much will it cost. Meanwhile, have you tried shutting down the blinds?
• me: .... walk away astonished ...

The 7GB free SD card that Android will not use to update

I have finally received the Lollipop 5.1 update for my Motorola E, a very Essential device that might be enough for 80% of people out there. The Motorola E first generation has its own storage of 2.something GB. Android fits together with all its pointless apps I don't use (pointless because mandatory) and it says it needs at least 850MB to be installed. I check the storage, there are 300MB left plus more than 7GB on the SD card. The SD card is mounted in recovery mode, so it's perfectly usable as alternative storage to execute a System update. No way, I had to remove a couple of apps because it is not possible to move Apps to SD card, only few awesome apps can do that, and I wonder why on earth this is not a requirement in order to be accepted in the Android store.
Why are these app so obtrusive that need to be installed in the equivalent of the Linux /boot, /etc, and /system folder? Why on earth there is an SD card if for an update I'll have same problems iPhone C had a while ago? At least iPhone C does not even accept an SD card. How dumb is being unable to use free space? What is that free space useful for? Why are all these Google apps I don't use incapable of being moved to the SD card?
These and many more questions that will never be answered in the next episode of: How dumb is the free space management in every Phone OS!

Not just updates

If you have your app in your SD card you are free to move that card in your new shiny phone and keep the precious data with you if you are still in the same OS, or a newer version of such OS. There is no reason your app needs to be in the main storage and I hope these will all change their requirements, beside modern phones have more than 2GB of main storage, the point is a completely different one.

The slower automatic checkout

Have you ever found at some supermarket an automatic checkout that won't scan the next item until it has said entirely the price of the previously scanned one? I did, and I've imagined myself staring in front of the working person telling me the price loudly of everything I've bought. What the actual heck were they thinking when they released the software for that machine?

The classic airport double lifts paradox

The book I've started and never completed is entitled: 20 Floors of JavaScript. Its title is inspired by the fact it's the 20th anniversary of JavaScript, and also its aim is to discover how to program multiple Array of lifts/elevators.
I've realized in 37 years of life that lifts are the most stupidly programmed software you can imagine, and there are tons of solutions that could be implemented but apparently the software is the same that somebody wrote in 1978 or similar years.
Just to name one utterly idiotic situation with lifts, try to take one at the airport, in a place where there are at least two lifts.
One will be inevitably full, and while its doors are closing, somebody will press the button in order to call the other lift.
The drama begins.
The lift that was going upstairs will interrupt its closing doors procedure, opening them back, and waiting other 5 seconds before eventually closing them again. While doors are closing again, the second impatient person will press the button again.
People will start shouting "DON'T PRESS THE BUTTON" and some fight might have already picked up in the queue or someone got angry with the person that is pressing the button, calling him/her idiot.
Truth is, the only idiot, and the elephant in the room nobody wants to see because it not a real entity, is the lift and its software. Not only these lift have a weight sensor, so that eventually these could ignore changing floor if the weight is too high, these lift also have a camera. Having a camera means that when the weight is 0, the lift can take a screenshot of its internal. When the weight is not zero and doors are closing, the lift can take another screenshot of its internal and compare that image, pixel per pixel, with the initial empty one, and unless every person of the lift managed to dress like a part of that lift interiors and in camera prospective, the lift could easily tell if its full enough to ignore any extra request to re-open the door and let somebody else get in. This is not too sophisticated at all, this is just basic common sense applied. Moreover, every extra button push could simply be counted as unsigned short which, if more than 2, should ignore the request. This will avoid deadlocks when people for the third time see doors closing, and somebody from the outside call the lift again. This would surely be over-engineered in any single lift situation, but it can actually speed up the logic when there are at least 2.
This, and many other little tricks I've no idea why whoever is programming lifts software is not thinking about. They are more like dumb, passive, queues, incapable of optimizing a single operation.

Rant over, share your funny story if you like!