Today a message on my car's dashboard read: "ESP not available".
Is this the conclusion my car has reached after some deep thinking? Is it an informative "thought for the day" from those cheeky scamps at Fiat? Or was it a poor error / feedback message that a) failed to fully exploit the display resources available to it and b) failed to give me an informative message which I could use to develop a practical course of action?
This isn't quite as bad as the obscure orange warning light that appeared on my previous car (a Vauxhall). Upon seeing the orange light I reasoned thusly: my car sometimes shows me red lights, orange lights, and green lights. I know that red lights are bad and green lights are good, or at least not bad. Red lights in my car are things I should action promptly to ensure continued safe driving, they include the "the handbrake is on, you shouldn't be trying to drive" light. Green lights inform me of the status of my car, but are things that might be beneficial. Examples include the lights that tell me my indicators are on. Orange lights, following all of my cultural and highway conditioning, must be something between red and green lights. They are important things I need to be aware of, but do not need to action immediately. My conceptual model did not match the design/feedback model, and five mails later the engine 'head' cracked and my car came to a slow, steam producing, halt.
In hindsight I should have tried to get the car company to provide recompense, or to offer me a job so that I could help them to make better products. In the meantime my current car may think that under normal operating conditions it has some form of extra sensory perception (ESP).
Is this the conclusion my car has reached after some deep thinking? Is it an informative "thought for the day" from those cheeky scamps at Fiat? Or was it a poor error / feedback message that a) failed to fully exploit the display resources available to it and b) failed to give me an informative message which I could use to develop a practical course of action?
This isn't quite as bad as the obscure orange warning light that appeared on my previous car (a Vauxhall). Upon seeing the orange light I reasoned thusly: my car sometimes shows me red lights, orange lights, and green lights. I know that red lights are bad and green lights are good, or at least not bad. Red lights in my car are things I should action promptly to ensure continued safe driving, they include the "the handbrake is on, you shouldn't be trying to drive" light. Green lights inform me of the status of my car, but are things that might be beneficial. Examples include the lights that tell me my indicators are on. Orange lights, following all of my cultural and highway conditioning, must be something between red and green lights. They are important things I need to be aware of, but do not need to action immediately. My conceptual model did not match the design/feedback model, and five mails later the engine 'head' cracked and my car came to a slow, steam producing, halt.
In hindsight I should have tried to get the car company to provide recompense, or to offer me a job so that I could help them to make better products. In the meantime my current car may think that under normal operating conditions it has some form of extra sensory perception (ESP).
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