By Peter Cochrane, 16 April 2008 11:12
COMMENT
Written while flying from London to Greece on BA632 and dispatched from a free wi-fi service in Athens.
Just over a year ago I undertook the complete renovation of an old house. It is now largely complete and, of course, bristles with technology: a new heating system, fire and burglar alarm, radio and TV, broadband and LAN, hubs, switches and wi-fi. You name it, I've installed it.
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I'm not all that comfortable with this. I come from a world - with experience of technology spanning 50 years - where pressing a button always involved immediate action or feedback.
What happened? Suddenly it seems everything subjects me to a delay for reasons that are not obvious.
Even my TV has infected me with multiple-click syndrome. Because changing channels involves a longer than natural delay, I tend to hit the button once or twice before anything happens on the screen, which confuses the entire system.
As far as I can see the same is now true for most new technologies. There must be a reason for all this. It looks to me like bloatware has now spilled out of the PC domain and invaded everything.
The world of the PC is now manifest in everything we buy. Our hardware is fast enough and does a good job but the software load is excessive.
Never before in the history of mankind has so much processing been deployed to do such simple jobs as switching on a light, changing channels, increasing volume, adjusting temperature or opening a car door.
We can only hope we shall see a return to sanity with the advent of new and leaner operating systems, and efficient code writers guided by sound design principles founded on well understood and documented human factors.
But I'm not holding my breath. In fact I'm actually struggling with a hotel bedroom door fitted with a tamper alarm that sounds like an air raid warning.
And yes - you've guessed it - there is a tricky door handle, plus e-card, warning and green lights, and opening and shutting protocols that conspire to produce a four-second delay.
But banging the door very hard seems to work. So perhaps there is even an accelerometer in there somewhere as well.
Comments
There are 11 comments. Join the discussion
1. Karen Challinor
They don't like people to know this but it's actually satellite relay delay.
You see each one of these devices contains a small dual-function microchip that has been carefully disguised to function not only like its brethren but look like them too, so it can't be easily located and removed.
It's secondary function is to communicate via satellite with the company holding the warranty and, once this has expired, wait a random number of seconds, usually no longer than a week, and then cause the device to become inoperative.
It's an improvement on the old clockwork devices that used to be in electronic devices like TVs and has the advantage that it can be miniaturised to fit in really small electronic items. Plus these can be reset - on production of large bundles of cash by the owner - by factory engineers without having to open the case.
So now you know. Just keep it to yourself.
2. Andrew Robb
The world of electronics seems fixated on the IBM PC architecture. It's eight-bit predecessors would delay only long enough for the power supply to stabilise and then start running their operating system from ROM. A fraction of a second later and you would see an OK prompt or similar. This could happen faster than the analog TV could lock on to the signal.
Since the IBM PC, everything needs a BIOS to load another operating system loader, which then loads the operating system, which then loads drivers and applications before we can do anything useful. But then we have most systems just going to standby rather than turning off. We still have to go through the BIOS to come out of standby.
We cannot entirely blame the digital world for this creeping paralysis of arbitrary delays. In the 1990s, some analogue TVs started to silence the sound for a second or two after changing channel. All these delays were only possible with increasingly complicated controls. I suspect delays were introduced as a ploy to make the process look more complicated and so more valuable.
If this carries on, soldiers will have to accept that it takes four seconds after releasing the safety catch before they can pull the trigger. Meanwhile, the chap with the 50-year-old Kalashnokov is already on his second magazine.
3. John H Woods
I heard recently that some wags explain the inexplicable pauses in Microsoft computers as "Windows is helping you."
Running 'rm *' on a large directory on a unix box is pretty instant. But, to be fair, running 'del *.*' in the Windows command shell is, too. Pressing 'delete' when using the explorer GUI, however can leave you waiting several seconds before anything happens.
As a performance engineer, I find it fascinating and appalling. The number of times you find transactions that take astonishing amounts of time when (all) the hardware is reporting that it is not doing anything is amazing.
I wonder if the almost organic nature of complex networks can be to blame? On my particular network it sometimes takes _minutes_ to open a given network share. What's going on there?
4. Joe Whitehead
Network share taking minutes: likely, you're still using NetBIOS/IPX?
I've had little problems with TCP/IP shares, assuming they work at all. By work at all, I'm referring to having to configure the annoyingly different settings so that all PCs see each other and can access files. Once that is done, they work great. Of course, a local copy of FreeFTPd (SFTP/SCP) is a lot easier to configure, but only does files.
The delay on deleting files is because Windows Explorer uses an algorythm that wants to keep track of which files are deleted before deleting them. Command Prompt and *nix tend to just recurse the directory structure after choosing to delete them.
5. Tony Hallett
Your post reminds me of when I was covering an event a few years back and Microsoft were there touting some new features for their IPTV platform. I was amazed to see one of the advances was something called 'instant channel change'. Hadn't we already had that for several decades?
6. Terry Carr
Well I hear that electronic gears have just arrived in pro cycling. Can't wait for the post-race interview excuses for losing in the Tour de France this summer:
"Drugs didn't work then?"
"Nah, my system froze after I double-clicked when nothing happened first time".
In French, of course.
7. Simon Allen
I know where all this started. It was when audio cassette decks were first fitted with the oil damped opening mechanism.
Do you remember that we thought it really cool that the front of the cassette tray would snick and ooiiiillll open, rather than just go klunk-smack???
Now, every button has electronic oil dampening so that it gives the same impression.
8. Tele3dworld
It's just the processing time. I was always told in the 1960s digital systems will always have a processing delay. But this delay has been substantially reduced since those days. This delay will come down further with increased processor power and other advances now in development.
9. John Lloyd
What's a "trunk mechanism" ? No car I've ever owned has had one of these as far as I know.
10. anonymous
I know what you mean so I try to only buy things which work instantly. My
digital TV changes channels instantly, my camera take pictures instantly. My phone turns on within three seconds - I'll forgive it because it does need to set up a few things - and makes a call within a second.
It's when I leave my own technology I get frustrated. Our work has just installed some electronic locks. The old system, you had to get a key out, insert it in the lock, turn it and open the door.
With this system, you have to get your electronic fob out, press the button, wait for a couple of seconds for the beep, usually have to press the button again as it didn't register the first time, wait for the beep again, then turn a small, slippery and stiff metal handle to open the door. If you manage to do that within the four seconds you have before the door locks again, you can get in. Otherwise you start the process over again.
11. Peter Cochrane
John = Buy a Merc or Lexus, or similar and you will find out....Peter