What's Your Point?

98% of the cars on the market are pointless, vague, milquetoastmobiles. Yes, your favorite car probably is too. But before you start frothing at the mouth, let me give you an example of the sort of car I mean: The BMW M3.

Hold on, put down the pitchforks and torches. Stay with me. I know the M3 is popular—I've read more glowing reviews of it than I can count. Having been lucky enough to drive a 335i and sit in an M3, I have no doubt that it's fast, or that it's luxurious. Part of me would love to own one. But part of me thinks it's a pretty limp-wristed effort on BMW's part.

Doesn't BMW repeat at least 3 times a commercial that it's products are the “Ultimate Driving Machine?” And if that's their philosophy, shouldn't the M cars epitomize it? But somehow when I think of an “ultimate driving machine”, the M3 doesn't seem to fit. To me, such an ultimate machine should be a lightweight machine polished to a razor's edge of performance. It should be the kind of car that is intimidating to drive, but rewarding if you can master it. The M3's stunning V8 and manual transmission fit this vision—but the heated seats, automatic climate control, nav system, adjustable suspension, HID headlights, leather everything, optional automatic trans, and high curb weight emphatically do not.

If BMW makes a stripped out, lightened CSL version as they've done in the past, that will be a lot closer—but they'll charge more for it and I find it baldly insulting to pay more for what amounts to less car, or for what they should have built in the first place. Yes the old CSLs weren't exactly street-friendly, but that's the point! Posers and wannabes can have a 335i. You should want an M3 only if you're hardcore—and wouldn't it benefit BMW if M3 ownership stood for something?

For similar reasons, I have issues with most cars on the market. I've said it before but maybe 80% of the automotive market serves no purpose at all. Every car maker has a number of models that have no redeeming features at all, that are cynically designed with the knowledge of a public who views driving as a chore. The most popular car in America, the silver Toyota Camry, is the prime offender in this category.

I think a good car should have a clearly defined reason for being. You don't find many of those, but I'll give a few examples:

The Jeep Wrangler (up till 2006)

I've driven two of these. They drive like tractors no matter what engine and transmission they have. They sound like a tractor too, and they probably get similar gas mileage. They were designed before the acronym “NVH” existed. They are rough, uncomfortable, primitive and on that basis you wonder who'd buy them. And that's the point. They are engineered almost solely to go off-road. Doesn't matter if you ever TAKE yours off road, the point is that it CAN. The overriding fact of that purpose is their entire appeal—and if you doubt this, look at their popularity.

The Dodge Viper

Built to go fast. No traction control. No fancy suspension. No fancy transmission. No luxuries at all. A reputation for being just as tack-spittingly mean, as lethal even, as it's namesake. They built the mighty V10 by sticking two extra cylinders on the end of a truck V8 that dates back to the 1960s. Then they stuck it in a car so small they had to route the hot exhaust through the doorsills—which means that if you carelessly put your hand on one, this car will do you an injury before you ever get to drive it. Once again, this car was built for a purpose, and at that it excels.

The Honda S2000

Built to be the very embodiment of a sports car. It isn't fast, but it's so small and tight it doesn't have to be. The cockpit surrounds you exactly as you'd expect something deserving of the name “cockpit” to. Every single control is literally a finger's reach away from the steering wheel. The steering, brakes and transmission are absolutely perfectly calibrated. The engine sings to a stratospheric 9000 RPM. This car sticks so hard that I puckered up long before it did. It's said that it was designed to be a four-wheeled motorcycle...and it is. This is such a good sports car that it made me, a lifelong devotee of American muscle, a man with a sticker on his Jeep castigating imports with such vulgarity that I can't print it here, want a Honda.

The Pontiac GTO (2004-2006)

400 horsepower, 6 speeds and IRS for the price of a Mustang of a hundred ponies, one gear and a solid axle less. Looks like a Grand Prix, but if you “get it”, that's part of the appeal. Many traditionalists didn't like it—but even they will admit it was brought over from Australia and souped up for American roads in the same spirit as Jim Wangers had when he shoe-horned a 389 into a Tempest in 1964 and started it all.

So what am I getting at here? Simple. If you build a car to a purpose, it will excel. It will be an awesome car in it's own right, and it will add immensely to your brand to produce it.

Why don't auto makers get this? As much as I hate to say it, there's a place for the silver Toyota Camries of the world. But there's also a place for a hell of a lot more “real cars”, cars built for a purpose. Get with it, car makers. Give me something before I'm so old and gray that I buy a Camry.

Rant of the Day

Technological ignorance is killing us.

People are friggin' morons about technology and I don't get it. It's 2010, people! How can most people use a computer every damn day, and not have a clue how it works? I worked at Best Buy for almost 2 years, and the kind of idiocy I had to deal with was incredible. (Things like explaining why a "wireless" router needs to be plugged into the wall, or the difference between a computer tower and a hard drive, or why a "wireless" printer doesn't just magically work without a router, or a dozen other things)

The bottom line is this. If you don't understand how technology works, you can't use it effectively. And you make things a royal PAIN IN THE ASS for those of us who DO know what we're doing. If you don't understand how to keep your computer clean, it will get fucked up. If you call me and ask me to help, I'll be pissed, because it doesn't take a genius to avoid that problem.

Apple exists for this reason. They know EXACTLY how stupid their customers are. They fully understand that the most important thing to the mouthbreathing masses is that their latest widget be pretty, trendy and require no intelligence at all to use. Apple customers don't care about functionality because they wouldn't know what to do with it. They wouldn't care about upgradeability because they'd just buy a new one. They don't care about compatibility with other products because they are happy to keep bending over to take it from Apple so that they never have to step outside the little universe of ignorance Apple products create. You think when you buy Apple you get a superior product? HA! What you're getting is artfully crafted cynicism. The assumption that you are a moron, wrapped in glossy black plastic and brushed aluminum.

And you know what? You're going to pay too much for that product. And keep paying. And paying. And paying. Look at the iPad. That is a device designed for ONE purpose, to get money out of you. If you wanted a tablet, they've been on the market for years by every PC maker EXCEPT Apple. You could even have bought one and put OSX on it. But that wouldn't make you look trendy trying to impress the other yuppies at Starbucks. And it would require a modicum of technical knowledge, which you can't be bothered to comprehend. And as a result, you'll be saddled with a device that can't do many things other computers can, that requires you to pay for everything you do with it, and which Apple can remotely disable and control if they decide they don't like you.

What's it like to be a sheep?

Thinkpad T410!

Just got a new laptop, a Thinkpad T410. It's quite nice, and a review will be forthcoming, but for now, here's what you need to know to install Linux on it:

This post will be updated as I continue working.

Xubuntu 9.10 (Karmic)
Bluetooth: Not yet tested
Graphics: Mine has switchable graphics. It appears that the Nvidia card is automatically used, and this works fine right out of the box, though a restricted driver is available.
Touchpad: No multitouch, other than that, works fine
Wireless: Requires install of linux-backports-modules-karmic, see http://www.linux-archive.org/ubuntu-kernel-team/295421-fix-iwl6000-does-not-work-2-6-31-kernel.html
Hotkeys: Brightness, ThinkLight, Wireless on/off, touchpad/trackpoint work fine.
Suspend/Resume: Suspends fine, freezes on resume.
Fingerprint reader: Does not appear to be supported by ThinkFinger. It is a "Upek Biometric Touchchip/Touchstrip Fingerprint Sensor" where Thinkfinger only supports the older SGS hardware. Will work more later.

Will work more and update this post.

Technology and Openness

Why isn't more technology more open? As a computer-science student, gearhead, and technically-inclined tinkerer, this is a question I seem to be wondering more and more each year.

Here's an example of what I mean:

A while ago, I got Forza Motorsport 2 for my Xbox 360. It required a couple gigs of hard drive space to be installed (my annoyance at that could be a post by itself) and this filled my hard drive to capacity. So I decided to upgrade.

Now, the Xbox 360 comes, or has come at various times and in various configurations, with hard drives of 20 GB, 60 GB, 120 GB and 250 GB. These hard drives hold all your saved games and data, so if you were to upgrade, you have to transfer all of that. You would think that since there were so many different drives available, upgrading from my 20 GB wouldn't be TOO hard to do.

But no. I tried to find an upgrade drive to buy, but it was harder than trying to buy a hooker in the middle of the Vatican. Best Buy didn't have them. Game Stop didn't have them. I tried EVERYWHERE and the only places that sold them were Amazon and Ebay. And the prices were ridiculous. A 120 GB hard drive for a laptop (not an Xbox) goes for $50 or less, and the smaller sizes aren't even readily available, the technology has come so far. But the stupid Xbox drive would have gone for $150 if I had been able to find it. That made no sense to me, but what's worse is that if Microsoft can screw anyone who wants to upgrade into paying that (and they can, read on) then WHY aren't the things available everywhere? If I could get people to pay a 300% markup on MY widget, I'd have them in every store in the land!

Being a techie, I know that the hard drive in the Xbox is a completely ordinary laptop-size hard drive. It's enclosed in a plastic case so it doesn't LOOK like it, but inside that case is a hard drive that can be plugged into any computer. Being a computer geek, my first thought was that perhaps it would be possible to disassemble the casing, replace the drive inside, and transfer the data manually. I'd built many computers, I was a senior Computer Science student and reasonably competent programmer....how hard could it be?

VERY hard, apparently. Turns out that the drive in the Xbox is not as ordinary as I had thought. It is a very specific model that has non-standard firmware on it. Firmware is the program code burned into the silicon chips on the drive's controller board--it tells the parts inside the drive how to move to get your data on and off. If you haven't heard talk of hard drive firmware before, it is because it is something that nobody, not even computer people like me, should ever have to deal with. It is typically loaded in at the factory, and only under very unusual circumstances should it need to be changed. Furthermore, there is no need for Microsoft to change it. To load nonstandard firmware seems to me to serve only one purpose--to keep technical people from working around that 300% hardware markup by putting their own drives in!

That's not the end of that idea though. Turns out that there are good tutorials on replacing your drive in exactly this manner, but you need the EXACT same drive model as Microsoft would have used, which is so old you can't find it anymore. Plus you have to replace that dreaded firmware yourself. And if you DO manage to overcome these hurdles, Microsoft can ban you from Xbox Live for having the temerity to do this!

OK then. I was defeated. I'd spent enough time and effort, I figured I'd just cough up the $150 and get it working. After much searching, I found a Game Stop that had a used 120 GB hard drive for $100. Nice. But there was one catch....how would I transfer my data onto the drive? There is a transfer cable and disk you can use, but the used drive I had bought didn't come with it. Back to the Internet I went.

This transfer cable is an item in high demand, apparently. Nobody had one. The cables themselves could be bought on Amazon, but the disks that were also required were nowhere to be found (and burning your own isn't an option because the Xbox won't run burned disks). So I asked around, and after much annoyance (including a trip to a skeevy little shop in Salem that was supposed to have one, but the owner of which's friend had absconded to New Hampshire with) I found that one could order the fabled cable from Microsoft. But not on their website, no. That would be too simple. Instead, you have to call their tech support line--dun dun DUN!

So, this all-day odyssey emcompassing stores, the Internet and the dark corners of Salem, which should have been a 15-minute trip to the Game Stop down the street, culminated in a 45-minute phone call to tech support. 10 minutes to find the number on the website, which Microsoft tries to hide, then 32 minutes fighting with the automated menu system, and once I reached a real person, a mere 3 minutes to order the frigging cable! Now all I have to do is wait a few weeks for them to ship the thing, and I should be able to once more enjoy my Xbox.

THIS is why technology should be open! Microsoft just lost any residue of goodwill they had from me by dragging out what could be a simple process (PS3 anyone?) and making it the most frustrating waste of an afternoon I've had in weeks! Would it have hurt them any to make the drive user-replaceable? No. Or at least make the replacement part readily available! I'm pretty sure it'd be easier to buy drugs than that stupid thing!