Forum Moderators: open
We need a new law.
You buy a car... and it's supposed to be safe to drive on the highway... I bought a bicycle last year.. they wouldn't let me take it out of the shop until they looked it over, tweaked it out... and even test road it themselves before I took possesion...
So like... why, when you buy a computer, it is already filled with more holes than swiss cheese, for safely driving on the internet highway, exposing yourself and others to danger and costly accidents.
Why should a consumer that buys a computer have to install say... 25 or 50 patches and updates, god forbid on a dialup line, on their "new" product. The computer should be road ready when you get it shouldn't it... or are pateches and updates to the large magnitude we see... like putting gas in my car?
It's not happening to me now... just sort of struck me as odd while pondering the meaning of life this evening.
Yes. Vehicles ARE (more or less - you don't really want me to go there....) road ready when you buy one. Then again, cars and trucks are far older in the scheme of things than computers, and have far more moving parts, AND are quite likely to seriously injure at the least, or kill at the worst, their users - assuming some stringent safety factors are abrogated.
Computers are REALLY new in the overall schema. Software ditto. So (and leaving completely out of the equation the fact that most people are in no danger - yes yes, only RELATIVELY speaking! - from their computers and software) I expect that once computers have been around as long as vehicles, there will be more stringent "requirements" in place.
Then again, considering the nature of machines, programmers, the internet, ad infinitum ad nauseam - perhaps not. It's still apples and oranges....
There's also the "relative cost" factor, which I didn't even address. Besides, you don't HAVE to buy a PC - there's always a *nix box....
The (automotive company) issued a press release stating: If they had developed technology like the (computer manufacturer), 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 in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over 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.
4. Occasionally, executing a manoeuver, 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. Another firm - that rhymes with Dapple - 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 per cent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
8. 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 aerial.
9. 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 the old car.
10.You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
Hopefully some of the old hands out there will be able to pronounce on the provenance of this alleged exchange...
Syzygy
[No - actually that couldn't be right, because I didn't have Windows to begin with, just DOS, and your anecdote became common currency with the Windows era....]
