Monday, October 30, 2006
Where To From Here?
I've been a car guy for most of my life. I'm not what you would call a "grease monkey" in that I do not particularly enjoy working on cars. I just enjoy cars for what they are. Most of the cars that have really caught my interest have been the good old American bread-and-butter cars. You know, the Fords, the Chevrolets, the Pontiacs and so forth. More recently, I have become a big fan of Saturn. Suffice it to say that the American automobile has a very cherished place in my heart.
What really started me off in this direction was something my dad brought home in early 1988. It was a brand new, brown Ford Taurus GL. Now, in my short ten years of life, I had never seen a more beautiful creation on four wheels. I was very accustomed to seeing Chevy Caprices and Pontiac Phoenixes and Ford LTD Crown Vics running up and down the street. Boxy was in and that was how it was going to stay. They were an evolution of the huge, barges that roamed the streets in the late '60s through the '70s. Now, we were well into the '80s and we were pretty much at a standstill as far as automotive styling was concerned. That is, until Ford dropped the bomb on the rest of the automotive world and introduced the Taurus. Like I said, the design of the Taurus captivated my young imagination in ways that no other product (not even toys) had ever done before. It looked futuristic, like a spaceship, even. It looked like it could double as a shuttle pod for the USS Enterprise. Those fantastically sculpted fenders, the unique door frames, the aerodynamic mirror pods all beckoned for the car to be moving.
Even the interior was a work to behold. With the sculpted dashboard that blended into the doors with a most organic sense, it made everything else look practically stone-aged. With one fell swoop, the squared-off, boxy styling that had captured the American (and foreign) auto markets was passe. The seats in the Taurus were even different that what I was used to. They were less like the living room sofa and more like something from a futuristic airplane or science fiction space ship. This first Taurus was truly a work to behold.
And behold it they did. For quite a while, the Taurus was the car to have. You knew your family was cool if you had a Taurus. By the 1990s, the Taurus was the best selling car in America. It was the slap in the face to all the foreign manufacturers that the U.S. auto industry desperately needed. People flocked to the Ford dealerships to just look at the Taurus. Many, many hard-working American folks bought the Taurus and enjoyed it as a faithful family car. Sure, it had its issues. It seemed to be troubled by a faulty transmission. But that did not stop Ford from making and selling nearly 7 million of them during its 21-year run.
Then, somewhere along the line, tragedy struck for the venerable Taurus. Trucks became the dominant sales force in the American auto market. People were fascinated with four wheel drive and V8s and decreased passenger volume. The car to have was no longer the Taurus. The car to have was the F-Series Pickup and the Chevy C/K and the Suburban and the Explorer. People bought these vehicles with visions of taking off-road trips to exotic places. Few ever took such trips. They simply replaced their Tauruses with bigger, fatter and more opulent trucks. The American (and even foreign) auto industry listened carefully. Soon, instead of smartly styled cars, oversized behemoths ruled the road. A man and a wife with a child or two would not think of owning a Taurus; they had to have a Suburban. So, the poor Taurus fell to neglect and lost its competitive edge it once enjoyed. Sure, Ford continued faithfully to produce them. People still bought them. But, they were now more of a butt of jokes than the once-proud highway clippers that graced the asphalt. The foreign cars ended up surpassing the Taurus in style and grace.
Fast forward, if you will, to the present day. As of Friday, the 27th of October, 2006, there are no more new Tauruses being produced. The factory that produced the last Taurus was shut down. 1,950 people were laid off. The Taurus became a relic of the past. Now, cars are styled differently. The sharp edges are coming back into full feature on new car models. Gas prices have driven the truck market back down and cars are (almost) cool again. However, ever so slightly, can one still see the echo of the Taurus in almost every new car sold. No single vehicle in history has ever had the kind of endearing effect on future generations than did the Taurus. Ever since I first laid eyes on my dad's brown Taurus back in 1988, I have compared all car models against the "wow" factor produced by that one example. I have yet to find one that moves me the way that one did.
Now with the Taurus silently absent from the new car fleet, where do we go from here? What new products can the American people produce that will change the world in such a way? Do we concede victory to the Japanese and the Germans? For the sake of all that is holy and pure in this world, I hope and pray that we do not. Americans can produce products that are better in every way than their foreign counterparts. The Taurus demonstrated that. We just have to do it again.
What really started me off in this direction was something my dad brought home in early 1988. It was a brand new, brown Ford Taurus GL. Now, in my short ten years of life, I had never seen a more beautiful creation on four wheels. I was very accustomed to seeing Chevy Caprices and Pontiac Phoenixes and Ford LTD Crown Vics running up and down the street. Boxy was in and that was how it was going to stay. They were an evolution of the huge, barges that roamed the streets in the late '60s through the '70s. Now, we were well into the '80s and we were pretty much at a standstill as far as automotive styling was concerned. That is, until Ford dropped the bomb on the rest of the automotive world and introduced the Taurus. Like I said, the design of the Taurus captivated my young imagination in ways that no other product (not even toys) had ever done before. It looked futuristic, like a spaceship, even. It looked like it could double as a shuttle pod for the USS Enterprise. Those fantastically sculpted fenders, the unique door frames, the aerodynamic mirror pods all beckoned for the car to be moving.
Even the interior was a work to behold. With the sculpted dashboard that blended into the doors with a most organic sense, it made everything else look practically stone-aged. With one fell swoop, the squared-off, boxy styling that had captured the American (and foreign) auto markets was passe. The seats in the Taurus were even different that what I was used to. They were less like the living room sofa and more like something from a futuristic airplane or science fiction space ship. This first Taurus was truly a work to behold.
And behold it they did. For quite a while, the Taurus was the car to have. You knew your family was cool if you had a Taurus. By the 1990s, the Taurus was the best selling car in America. It was the slap in the face to all the foreign manufacturers that the U.S. auto industry desperately needed. People flocked to the Ford dealerships to just look at the Taurus. Many, many hard-working American folks bought the Taurus and enjoyed it as a faithful family car. Sure, it had its issues. It seemed to be troubled by a faulty transmission. But that did not stop Ford from making and selling nearly 7 million of them during its 21-year run.
Then, somewhere along the line, tragedy struck for the venerable Taurus. Trucks became the dominant sales force in the American auto market. People were fascinated with four wheel drive and V8s and decreased passenger volume. The car to have was no longer the Taurus. The car to have was the F-Series Pickup and the Chevy C/K and the Suburban and the Explorer. People bought these vehicles with visions of taking off-road trips to exotic places. Few ever took such trips. They simply replaced their Tauruses with bigger, fatter and more opulent trucks. The American (and even foreign) auto industry listened carefully. Soon, instead of smartly styled cars, oversized behemoths ruled the road. A man and a wife with a child or two would not think of owning a Taurus; they had to have a Suburban. So, the poor Taurus fell to neglect and lost its competitive edge it once enjoyed. Sure, Ford continued faithfully to produce them. People still bought them. But, they were now more of a butt of jokes than the once-proud highway clippers that graced the asphalt. The foreign cars ended up surpassing the Taurus in style and grace.
Fast forward, if you will, to the present day. As of Friday, the 27th of October, 2006, there are no more new Tauruses being produced. The factory that produced the last Taurus was shut down. 1,950 people were laid off. The Taurus became a relic of the past. Now, cars are styled differently. The sharp edges are coming back into full feature on new car models. Gas prices have driven the truck market back down and cars are (almost) cool again. However, ever so slightly, can one still see the echo of the Taurus in almost every new car sold. No single vehicle in history has ever had the kind of endearing effect on future generations than did the Taurus. Ever since I first laid eyes on my dad's brown Taurus back in 1988, I have compared all car models against the "wow" factor produced by that one example. I have yet to find one that moves me the way that one did.
Now with the Taurus silently absent from the new car fleet, where do we go from here? What new products can the American people produce that will change the world in such a way? Do we concede victory to the Japanese and the Germans? For the sake of all that is holy and pure in this world, I hope and pray that we do not. Americans can produce products that are better in every way than their foreign counterparts. The Taurus demonstrated that. We just have to do it again.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
As The World Turns
Certain things in life are very, very certain. Things like death, taxes, and bad tuna are all things that we have to live with at some time in our lives. There are also things that are not so certain such as the weather, the stock market and little league scores, that help to balance out our lives of stoic certainty.
One thing that should be located in the list of "certains" is Microsoft's commitment to unreliability. They just have a really hard time making anything work like it really should. Specifically, I speak of the mighty Internet Explorer web browser. Today, Microsoft pushed out this behemoth of a browser to the millions of unsuspecting victims running Windows XP SP2. The release today was of special import because it was the release of the long-awaited, much ballyhooed Internet Explorer 7.
Up 'til now, most folks have been running IE version 6 if they've been keeping up with the "security" rollouts. This version was the last major revision of Internet Explorer, and even the term "major" is up for debate. It really is just more of a tweaked IE 5, which arguably, is just a tweaked IE4. Internet Explorer 4 came out with Windows 98, if that gives you a sense of how old this browser really is. The landscape of the Internet has changed a lot since August of 1998, but IE really hasn't been there to absorb those changes. It has suffered literally thousands of attacks, exposing Windows users to very serious threats. Why it ever became the dominant browser is based solely in marketing. Were it not for the fact that Microsoft bundles it, nay, inextricably binds it to the operating system is the only merit it has for the popularity it enjoys. Newer, more modern and more secure browsers have long since passed it as a leader in technology. Internet Explorer is also seriously lacking in the standards compliance department.
So, with today's release, what did the user get? How does it compare with other, more modern browsers? Permit me, if you will, to break it down:
It gets better... While looking at the Microsoft site, I noticed that my computer had become very sluggish. Curious, I opened the task manager and went to the processes tab. The CPU was pegged at 100% with iexplore.exe (Internet Explorer) taking the vast bulk of the CPU time. I couldn't actually do anything with IE7 in this state. Mouse clicks were unproductive. So, I had to manually kill the process using Task Manager. I really don't think that's correct behavior for a browser.
So, all in all, I'm very underwhelmed by Internet Explorer 7. Will I be switching back as Microsoft would hope? No. I've been down that road and I don't want to go back. Long live Open Source!
One thing that should be located in the list of "certains" is Microsoft's commitment to unreliability. They just have a really hard time making anything work like it really should. Specifically, I speak of the mighty Internet Explorer web browser. Today, Microsoft pushed out this behemoth of a browser to the millions of unsuspecting victims running Windows XP SP2. The release today was of special import because it was the release of the long-awaited, much ballyhooed Internet Explorer 7.
Up 'til now, most folks have been running IE version 6 if they've been keeping up with the "security" rollouts. This version was the last major revision of Internet Explorer, and even the term "major" is up for debate. It really is just more of a tweaked IE 5, which arguably, is just a tweaked IE4. Internet Explorer 4 came out with Windows 98, if that gives you a sense of how old this browser really is. The landscape of the Internet has changed a lot since August of 1998, but IE really hasn't been there to absorb those changes. It has suffered literally thousands of attacks, exposing Windows users to very serious threats. Why it ever became the dominant browser is based solely in marketing. Were it not for the fact that Microsoft bundles it, nay, inextricably binds it to the operating system is the only merit it has for the popularity it enjoys. Newer, more modern and more secure browsers have long since passed it as a leader in technology. Internet Explorer is also seriously lacking in the standards compliance department.
So, with today's release, what did the user get? How does it compare with other, more modern browsers? Permit me, if you will, to break it down:
- To start off, IE7 is a 14.80 megabyte download. What other browsers out there are that hefty of a download? Opera: 6.3MB. Firefox: 4.9MB. These are the two most popular browsers next to IE and even the larger of them is less than half the size of IE7.
- Hmmm. Fifteen minutes to install a browser. I can usually install Firefox in less than a minute.
- Two Windows reboots. Firefox requires no reboots.
- What the hell are Internet Explorer Core Components? Wouldn't that be "the browser?" This took up the bulk of the install time.
- Validation (Windows Genuine Advantage)? Why? It's a browser, folks. You use it to view web pages. Why do I need to validate to download a browser?
- Despite the marketing spin Microsoft puts on their browser, tabbed browsing and RSS are not new. Those of us using every other browser on the planet have been using them for years.
- Of course, to get the most out of your web browser, you need to enable the Phabulous Phishing Philter. Again, not a new thing.
- An oldie but goodie: With IE, increased security = decreased usability. Lock down your Internet Security settings and then try to use the browser. :)
- Standards still broken at no extra charge.
It gets better... While looking at the Microsoft site, I noticed that my computer had become very sluggish. Curious, I opened the task manager and went to the processes tab. The CPU was pegged at 100% with iexplore.exe (Internet Explorer) taking the vast bulk of the CPU time. I couldn't actually do anything with IE7 in this state. Mouse clicks were unproductive. So, I had to manually kill the process using Task Manager. I really don't think that's correct behavior for a browser.
So, all in all, I'm very underwhelmed by Internet Explorer 7. Will I be switching back as Microsoft would hope? No. I've been down that road and I don't want to go back. Long live Open Source!
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Politically Correct Driving
Okay, maybe it's just me. Maybe, by some chance of fate, I didn't catch the message that said that the old concept of courteous driving was being done away with for a more modern, more stylish driving demeanor. Maybe I'm just wrong in thinking that it's bad form to drive down the road and flash your headlights at people to make them get out of your way, or to forego using turn signals to indicate your intent. Maybe I'm just wrong. I don't know.
I think people have become way to content driving their cars. I tend to feel that as we get cars with more and more power (and more and more marketing) that people feel like they have to use that power all the time. If your car has a 250hp engine, man, look out because I have to exercise all those ponies all the time I'm driving. Who gives a flying rusty about my fuel consumption or heck, even the safety of others on the road....BECAUSE MY RIGHTS START NOW!! Fooey! You don't have any rights on the road. Oh, but maybe that's just me being wrong again.
I find myself, as I do most evenings, driving home from work. I'm doing about 60MPH in the left lane of Highway 89. I'm keeping up with traffic fairly well considering that I have this terrible aversion to tailgating anyone. Suddenly, I look in my rearview mirror in time to see this stupid little PT Cruiser come flying up behind me and slow down so as to not smash right into me. Then, the driver, out of some wire loose in her head, decides to flash her bright lights at me, as if to say that she has some God-given reason to be in this lane and I need to get out of her way.
Now, normally, when I see someone driving maniacally fast behind me, I do move over and allow them to exercise their animal urges as they go by. But, this was different. Just because this lady treated me like she did, I stood my ground. And there she remained: doggedly attached to my rear bumper with her bright lights on so that she could see all the way up my exhaust pipe to the catalytic converter. It must've been fascinating because she hung on back there for like a mile and a half. She would have stayed back there, but I finally decided that it was more important for me to change lanes in anticipation of a right turn. So, when the opportunity came, I turned on my factory-installed and very reliable turn signal, checked my blind spot and proceeded to change lanes. Of course, as soon as I changed lanes, she went roaring by me (as fast as a PT Cruiser can sort of go) and then changed lanes in front of me, without the slightest hint of a turn signal! "Okay, what the hell was that all about?" I think to myself. Anyhow, she stayed in front of me and didn't appear to be in any particular hurry at that point. Finally, she just turned right at an intersection and left me and the rest of the drivers in peace. Of course she made that right turn without a thought to a turn signal. I don't know, does Chrysler install turn signals by default in PT Cruisers? Or is that one of those upmarket options?
Perhaps my perception of this whole encounter is flawed in some way and I'm not with the times because I use my turn signals and don't flash my brights at folks to get them out of my way. That's what the bumper's for, anyhow.
I think people have become way to content driving their cars. I tend to feel that as we get cars with more and more power (and more and more marketing) that people feel like they have to use that power all the time. If your car has a 250hp engine, man, look out because I have to exercise all those ponies all the time I'm driving. Who gives a flying rusty about my fuel consumption or heck, even the safety of others on the road....BECAUSE MY RIGHTS START NOW!! Fooey! You don't have any rights on the road. Oh, but maybe that's just me being wrong again.
I find myself, as I do most evenings, driving home from work. I'm doing about 60MPH in the left lane of Highway 89. I'm keeping up with traffic fairly well considering that I have this terrible aversion to tailgating anyone. Suddenly, I look in my rearview mirror in time to see this stupid little PT Cruiser come flying up behind me and slow down so as to not smash right into me. Then, the driver, out of some wire loose in her head, decides to flash her bright lights at me, as if to say that she has some God-given reason to be in this lane and I need to get out of her way.
Now, normally, when I see someone driving maniacally fast behind me, I do move over and allow them to exercise their animal urges as they go by. But, this was different. Just because this lady treated me like she did, I stood my ground. And there she remained: doggedly attached to my rear bumper with her bright lights on so that she could see all the way up my exhaust pipe to the catalytic converter. It must've been fascinating because she hung on back there for like a mile and a half. She would have stayed back there, but I finally decided that it was more important for me to change lanes in anticipation of a right turn. So, when the opportunity came, I turned on my factory-installed and very reliable turn signal, checked my blind spot and proceeded to change lanes. Of course, as soon as I changed lanes, she went roaring by me (as fast as a PT Cruiser can sort of go) and then changed lanes in front of me, without the slightest hint of a turn signal! "Okay, what the hell was that all about?" I think to myself. Anyhow, she stayed in front of me and didn't appear to be in any particular hurry at that point. Finally, she just turned right at an intersection and left me and the rest of the drivers in peace. Of course she made that right turn without a thought to a turn signal. I don't know, does Chrysler install turn signals by default in PT Cruisers? Or is that one of those upmarket options?
Perhaps my perception of this whole encounter is flawed in some way and I'm not with the times because I use my turn signals and don't flash my brights at folks to get them out of my way. That's what the bumper's for, anyhow.
