If you were alive (and online) during the 90s, you may remember the banter between Microsoft and General Motors:
From https://crysa.fzu.cz/ondra/documents/cars_like_windows.html (the only online copy I could find)
Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five-dollar cars that get 1,000 miles to the gallon.”
In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
[…]
The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single “general car error” warning light.
New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
The airbag system would ask “Are You Sure?” before going off.
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 grabbed a hold of the radio antenna.
30 years later, some of those jokes are finally becoming reality, thanks to Tesla.
The Macintosh one is wild
“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 5 percent of the roads."
Love the scene from the Steve Jobs movie where Woz asks Steve if in order to send an email on the NEXT computer the recipient would also need to have an NEXT computer.
Of course!
Basically iMessaging and FaceTime.
Blows my mind that literally every other brand of phone has settled on a standard for rich messaging and video calls, but Apple had to make a big stink about it and pinky-promise it’ll be out this year.
And all the Apple users act like everybody else is inferior…while they’re the only ones that are incompatible.
I bought an iPhone 12 specifically because I was tired of potato-grams between my wife and I. I switched back to Android a couple weeks ago on that pinky-promise.
Among several other Apple-isms, this one blows my mind then most.
My experience with Macs was not anything like that. Not super intuitive to figure out, which was made more frustrating by how slow it was, which was made more frustrating by the crashes and having to start all over again.
My experience with Macs has only made me hate them more. I once had to crop a photo on a Mac. Simple, right? Wrong. I opened the photo in whatever the default photo viewer is called (Preview?), but I didn’t see an edit button. So I figured, “Maybe there’s a different photo application I’m supposed to use?” So, I keep trying to find either a different application in that list (Quick Launch? Launchpad? shrug) or an “Open with…” feature like Windows has. Then I complained to my friend next to me, and he showed me how to do it. It was the same exact way I’d done it the first time, except now an edit button appeared.
There have also been several time’s I’ve needed to upload something (usually a video) from a Mac, and, despite having just saved it, I couldn’t find it because (as far as I could tell) it wasn’t in a folder I could get to on the upload dialog box despite having just saved it using a similar dialog box that could access the folder I saved the item in.
I’ve heard of Tesla owners being unable to get into their car because their wireless-only key fob was to close to a radio dish and was being effectively jammed. The owner had to go under the car and hide the remote from the radar dish to get it to unlock
Yikes. Wouldn’t that effect all fob style entries though? A lot of cars do that.
Yes it will kill any brand’s wireless capability, but almost every wireless key fob also has a valet key that can open the door without any wireless connection. Tesla’s mistake was to require you to use the wireless fob.
There’s a small difference between US Letter and A4. If you have A4 in your printer but use “default” settings which would be US Letter, the printer warns you, correctly, in the same way that it should warn you if you’ve got a load of A5 in your printer but want an A4 print.
Never seen it but I hypothesise that if it were the other way round you’d see PC LOAD A4.
Most modern computerized cars are like this sadly, but i think tesla is the worst one them all
When they get old and central enough for hacker kiddies to have, I predict jail breaking will be pretty common.
“Wiper fluid empty. Car shutting down.”
So for the record, I had a non-EV car scream bloody murder, barely drivable, ABS triggering randomly, 10 warnings whenever you turned it on, and in the end it was one little burnt out sensor that caused it all.
I wouldn’t buy a tesla considering all the dodgy stuff that has come out, but non-EVs are just as susceptable to the printer analogy.
I’ve had my car’s transmission go out and keep putting itself in limp mode (won’t go above 40mph) but I could still actually drive it and open the doors and windows. I just read an article of a woman who got locked into her Tesla because the fucker started updating. That’s a problem literally no other cars have, nor should they.
The woman was an idiot then, because the car has manual levers to open the doors, for cases just like this, or total power failure. It’s required by law in most countries, if not all.
She wasn’t locked in - the update said not to to open any doors or windows during the update, so she didn’t. She could have at any time, but she didn’t want to risk bricking her car. I understand where she’s coming from, but I also think she was nuts for waiting THAT long.
That kinda sounds like it might break some kinda law? A fire safety requorement comes to mind, but I’m not sure if it actually applies to cars and not just buildings.
But yes, you’re right, a car you can’t get out of at all times is a car no one should have.
Teslas have backup manual interior door handles but they’re somewhat obscure so not everyone know they are there.
The only ICE cars that are as unreliable as printers are Italian vehicles.
American cars aren’t exactly wonderful. Each of the big 3 has some specific vehicles/configurations that are reliable, and the rest is terrible.
The last time Ford made a reliable vehicle was the panther bodies with the 4.6L engine. That engine is damn near invincible. They got very good fuel economy for a V8 too
