"The Conservative view of Protect (inherent ideology: fire prevention should be as easy and user-friendly as possible) can be characterised (or caricatured), I think, roughly as follows: [present fire alarms are good enough, nobody needs these fancy doo-dads]"
Conservative ("Null") view: the primary objective of a smoke alarm is to (a) detect and (b) signal the presence of smoke. Nothing, hand waving or not, should compromise this.
Progressive ("Alternate") view: a smoke alarm must also maximise (c) the probability of the signal being heard. This objective is compromised if people, finding their smoke alarms a nuisance, turn them off.
In summary, Null says (a) and (b). Alternate says also (c). Null says adding (c) dilutes (b) and so is harmful. These views not mutually exclusive - not everyone need have the same smoke alarm. The more disciplined may be safer with a traditional smoke alarm. Those of us who just spent a minute searching the ceiling may be better served by the Nest Protect.
"Why not think about it this way: companies like Nest, Apple and Soylent are offering us, no strings attached, brand new propositions for paths to a better future."
Being sceptical of a fire safety product being brought to market is a good response. While I, too, found the tone of the Nest Protect and TouchID conversations combative, I was thoroughly informed by both. Constructive does not have to mean positive.
Disclosure: I am in the Alternate/"Progressive" camp
Interestingly enough, the best solutions come from both parts working together. In this example, the conservative view is indeed correct, it is very, very dangerous if you could disable a true alert. However, the progressive view still has a darn realistic point.
But, once you combine both, you reach a really interesting third way: Don't do binary detection, do trinary detection if possible. "No smoke", "Some smoke" and "Ok this is completely fubar"-levels of smoke. "Some smoke" can be waved, Fubar-Levels of smoke cannot be waved and the user is informed of this.
Yes, I was surprised how negative the community was being :/ I am all for the "Constructive Criticism is better the 'you rock!' comments" thing but the Null view people didn't have any other point than "People are stupid. They shouldn't take batteries out. If there are false alarms it's YOUR fault that the detector is misplaced"
I like HN's usual healthy debates, but at this point things just seemed absurd.
Comments
"The Conservative view of Protect (inherent ideology: fire prevention should be as easy and user-friendly as possible) can be characterised (or caricatured), I think, roughly as follows: [present fire alarms are good enough, nobody needs these fancy doo-dads]"
Conservative ("Null") view: the primary objective of a smoke alarm is to (a) detect and (b) signal the presence of smoke. Nothing, hand waving or not, should compromise this.
Progressive ("Alternate") view: a smoke alarm must also maximise (c) the probability of the signal being heard. This objective is compromised if people, finding their smoke alarms a nuisance, turn them off.
In summary, Null says (a) and (b). Alternate says also (c). Null says adding (c) dilutes (b) and so is harmful. These views not mutually exclusive - not everyone need have the same smoke alarm. The more disciplined may be safer with a traditional smoke alarm. Those of us who just spent a minute searching the ceiling may be better served by the Nest Protect.
"Why not think about it this way: companies like Nest, Apple and Soylent are offering us, no strings attached, brand new propositions for paths to a better future."
Being sceptical of a fire safety product being brought to market is a good response. While I, too, found the tone of the Nest Protect and TouchID conversations combative, I was thoroughly informed by both. Constructive does not have to mean positive.
Disclosure: I am in the Alternate/"Progressive" camp
Interestingly enough, the best solutions come from both parts working together. In this example, the conservative view is indeed correct, it is very, very dangerous if you could disable a true alert. However, the progressive view still has a darn realistic point.
But, once you combine both, you reach a really interesting third way: Don't do binary detection, do trinary detection if possible. "No smoke", "Some smoke" and "Ok this is completely fubar"-levels of smoke. "Some smoke" can be waved, Fubar-Levels of smoke cannot be waved and the user is informed of this.
Yes, I was surprised how negative the community was being :/ I am all for the "Constructive Criticism is better the 'you rock!' comments" thing but the Null view people didn't have any other point than "People are stupid. They shouldn't take batteries out. If there are false alarms it's YOUR fault that the detector is misplaced"
I like HN's usual healthy debates, but at this point things just seemed absurd.