MS at the Wheel
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2003 at 1025Browsing the news this morning I came across this article on Wired.com:
Wired News: Microsoft Software in Every Car?
Whilst drive-by-wire is by no means a new idea, with software controlling several cars in retail already, the call for concern comes from this particular vendor.
BSOD at the wheell? No thanks. Who knows, you might even find yourself reversing into a horizontal scrollbar…. *cough*
Speaking of horizontal scrollbars, some of you who are still ignoring the best advice in the world will notice that the evil “Pointless Horizontal Scrollbar of Despair” is no longer with us. May it rot in hell.
sorry for the long post but its funny,
If Microsoft made cars…
In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release
stating (by Mr Welch himself, The GM CEO): If GM had developed
technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the
following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
have to reinstall the engine.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
“Car95″ or “CarNT.” But then you would have to buy more seats.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
on five per cent of the roads.
7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
replaced by a single “general car default” warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say “Are you sure?” before going off.
10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by 50% or
more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
Justice Department.
12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn
how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
operate in the same manner as the old car.
13. You’d press the “start” button to shut off the engine.
http://www.life-insurance-advisor.com – term life
– Edited by Admin
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