Sinister Turn Signals

I used to have a book called Turn Signals are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles. It was sort of a lament of bad industrial design and a call to do a better job. This evening I was reminded of this title in the most literal sense. There was an Audi in front of me turning left. I was horrified. All I could think of was Lucille Bluth.



Do they not do user testing on new car design? They might ought to start. Especially now that they are playing with totally new schemes using super bright LEDs. They should really set up a simulation of following that thing in traffic at night. It can be really jarring.

I think I saw this same car coming towards me the other day and it has LEDs around the halogen headlamps too, like daytime running lights. I thought it was a good idea, but the placement of the lights gave it a kind of prissy look. It was like somebody who just flops their fingertips at you when you go to shake their hand. Maybe that's what they were going for, I don't know.

I had an interesting talk with my cunningly unemployed friend the other day about labels. He tried to explain to me what "secular humanist" means. I am uncomfortable calling myself any kind of humanist because I'm really not so keen on the idea of singling us out as a more important species than the others. But if we get to attach prefixes to it then I've decided I'm a "technical humanist" because I do enjoy the technical accomplishments of our species, as long as I get to be a critic.