If Microsoft built cars

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), 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 got 1000 mi/gal."

Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement: "Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?"

Not only that, but....

Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.
Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
Occasionally, executing a maneuver wouuld cause your car to stop an fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you would accept this too.
You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT". But, then you would have to buy more seats.
Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.
The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.
The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
The airbag system would say "are you sure?" before going off.
If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.

The airbag system would say "are you sure?" before going off.

If your car is a Linux model....

You built it yourself out of discarded scrap from the junkyard, yet it outruns anything on the road. Some part on it somewhere is held in place with a rubber band.

No one else can drive it because it takes too long to explain the procedure on how to make it go.

It has four gear shift levers.

There is always some fundamental part not attached to it, awaiting a vendor to provide it, such as the trunk lid, the back seat, the tachometer, or the radio.

It has no air conditioning. You know of people who have installed air conditioning themselves, but you haven't gotten around to learning how to do that yet.

Your car only runs really really well on the freeway. It can go 120 mph and get 300 mpg while doing it. When going slower than 45 mph in a residential area, it often sputters and dies, refuses to change gears, or won't fit in parking spaces. Many fine restaurants will not allow your car in the parking lot.

Sometimes the gas you buy works well, other times it chokes the engine. You become very conscious of the availability of gas in the exact formulation that works best. You have a notebook with dozens of pages of notes on the subject.

The engine you bought was free and runs great. The steering wheel and gearshift cost you money, though, and they suck. You bought them on credit and haven't paid for them yet.

Even though there is no user's manual, you have cobbled one together from various books. It is 1,200 pages long and some of it is in Dutch.

There are eight places this car is preprogrammed to drive itself. Amazingly, this works reliably, and you use it when you can. Unfortunately only three of them are places you actually want to go - but you go to the other places just because you can.

There is one place where everyone who drives your type of car goes to meet. When there, it is difficult to get a word in edgewise because everyone knows more than you - or at least they think they do. When drivers of other cars wander in by accident, you steal their hubcaps and tell them what fools they are.

You are an expert on XP type cars and often pull over to help one which has suddenly died due to a missed registration key.

In a conversation with XP and OS X car owners, you invariably come off as the one person who actually has a clue about how a car operates.

You live under the misguided concept that everyone will want to build their own car someday.

carrotmadman6 wrote:

If your car is a Linux model....

You built it yourself out of discarded scrap from the junkyard, yet it outruns anything on the road. Some part on it somewhere is held in place with a rubber band.

No one else can drive it because it takes too long to explain the procedure on how to make it go.

It has four gear shift levers.

There is always some fundamental part not attached to it, awaiting a vendor to provide it, such as the trunk lid, the back seat, the tachometer, or the radio.

It has no air conditioning. You know of people who have installed air conditioning themselves, but you haven't gotten around to learning how to do that yet.

Your car only runs really really well on the freeway. It can go 120 mph and get 300 mpg while doing it. When going slower than 45 mph in a residential area, it often sputters and dies, refuses to change gears, or won't fit in parking spaces. Many fine restaurants will not allow your car in the parking lot.

Sometimes the gas you buy works well, other times it chokes the engine. You become very conscious of the availability of gas in the exact formulation that works best. You have a notebook with dozens of pages of notes on the subject.

The engine you bought was free and runs great. The steering wheel and gearshift cost you money, though, and they suck. You bought them on credit and haven't paid for them yet.

Even though there is no user's manual, you have cobbled one together from various books. It is 1,200 pages long and some of it is in Dutch.

There are eight places this car is preprogrammed to drive itself. Amazingly, this works reliably, and you use it when you can. Unfortunately only three of them are places you actually want to go - but you go to the other places just because you can.

There is one place where everyone who drives your type of car goes to meet. When there, it is difficult to get a word in edgewise because everyone knows more than you - or at least they think they do. When drivers of other cars wander in by accident, you steal their hubcaps and tell them what fools they are.

You are an expert on XP type cars and often pull over to help one which has suddenly died due to a missed registration key.

In a conversation with XP and OS X car owners, you invariably come off as the one person who actually has a clue about how a car operates.

You live under the misguided concept that everyone will want to build their own car someday.

http://lowendmac.com/lite/02/0304.html