For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on.
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,
‘If Ford had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.’
In response to Bill Gates’s comments, Ford issued a press release, stating:
'If Ford had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):
For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash… twice a day.
Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
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.
Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single ‘This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation’ warning light.
The airbag system would ask ‘Are you sure?’ before deploying.
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 hold of the radio antenna.
Every time a new car was introduced, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as in the old car.
You’d have to press the ‘Start’ button to turn the engine off.
PS - I 'd like to add that when all else fails, you could call ‘customer service’ in some foreign country and be instructed in some foreign language how to fix your car yourself!!!
Of course these days, Gates could say back to Ford: “The government said we were too successful and broke us up. They also said you were too much of a failure and glued you back together.”
If your computer crashes twice a day every day there is definitely a reason for it.
I assume this refers to software compatibility breaking between Windows versions. This hasn’t really been an issue for a dozen years now. However, Windows on ARM (Windows 8 for tablets) will not run x86 code but will look exactly like desktop Windows. This is going to frustrate the few people who buy a Win8 tablet expecting it to work like a Win8 desktop.
See item 1 on the list, this type of scenario is commonly caused by hardware faults.
Occasionally making a left turn in your car will cause it to have a devastating collision with a solid object. Those who do not drive carefully will have this issue more often than those who do.
Apple’s strict control of their hardware results in a more stable (but less versatile) experience overall. But the sun does not shine out of Apple’s ass. A quick browse of the support section of Apple’s website shows they have no shortage of issues.
The BSOD is a “check engine” light, not the equivalent of the above lights. When you are told to check engine you don’t stare at the light on the dash until it gives you answers.
It does, otherwise it might go off in your face when you’re going over speedbumps. Also, what is the equivalent of an airbag in a computer?
Again, just because the user does not understand the reason for a fault does not mean that it was random and arbitrary.
Anyone who has ever rented a car has already dealt with this. But you don’t have to learn how to drive all over again, you just need to learn where the buttons are.
This is already the case. What part of the car are you manipulating when you turn the key? The starter. And when you turn it the other way to shut the vehicle off…?
Ford has never needed and did not take assistance from the government. You’re thinking of General Motors and that Italian company that was given Chrysler for pennies, who then turned around and fleeced the US for money to save an “American” tradition.
From last week’s news:
But if you’re curious, you can dig up the numbers that Toyota squeezed from US and state governments to build their 13 factories in the US.
I think this is the main reason for such a dramatic redesign. What I don’t get is why they couldn’t keep the redesign on tablets, call the OS something else, and them make Windows 8 gradually move towards the new UI. Then Windows 9 comes along and works on both.
Also, there’s no technical reason they can’t run x86 code on ARM–they are planning to allow this very thing to run Office. They are employing signatures to keep other programs from being able to access this sort of thing. I predict that there will be a sort of jailbreaking software that will allow users to use this mode–though it wouldn’t surprise me if the emulation is not 100% compatible.
