Toyota: Moving Forward, But Not Fast Enough

I commute 80 miles a day to and from work, and I can tell you for a fact that most Toyota drivers (and most drivers of any vehicle, for that matter) struggle to find the gas pedal. And unfortunately, I’ve yet to be behind a Toyota exhibiting any of this unintended acceleration crap that’s constantly being talked about (“New at 11, your Toyota may kill you!”).

Kidding aside, every day I’m amazed at the incompetence of the American driver. I’m no world traveler, but it’s fairly common knowledge that it’s much more difficult to get a driver’s license in Europe because you actually have to know how to drive to get a license there. In America, we care about how many feet from a fire hydrant you can park, and what a big red octagonal sign means. But understeer or oversteer? Actually practicing controlling a skid, instead of just reading about it? Knowing that you can shift into neutral if your gas pedal magically finds itself glued to the floor? How about turning the car off when that happens? Americans seem to want a computer to do all of this for them, and that’s the problem. Machine intelligence is no substitute for a lack of the human variety, however scarce it may be in certain instances and situations.

Maybe Toyota really does have a problem, and maybe they don’t. Even if they do, it’s a secondary concern to how bad the typical American driver is. And guess which one is going to be addressed…

1. If this had happened to me when I was 16, I’d have the rear tires spinning as I went out the driveway sideways, leaving everyone standing there—and I’m not even a fan of the car.

2. This kid apparently has far more self-restraint than I had when I was 16, but this still doesn’t strike me as a great idea. Ideally, this is the last we’ll hear of this story (i.e., no accidents or whatever), but I still suspect the dad will be replacing the rear tires in about 1,000 miles or so.

3. I was a spoiled child, but when I turned 16, I didn’t get a car as a present. I had to get a job, and then pay for my first car myself. It made me appreciate it that much more. There’s something to be said for that, and—assuming I have kids—I wouldn’t get them anything near that nice, even if I had the money. But that’s just me.

No, it’s not a logical layout for a car (to preempt a certain comment bound to be made by Casey — strange timing there), but I’ll be damned if the slope nose isn’t a gorgeous car. I’m pretty sure I’d rather drive a 951-era 944 (or later, a 968), but looks wise, this has it beat. If—well, when—you lose control of these earlier 911s, the general consensus seems to be that you’ll either crash or shit yourself. Perhaps both. Click for high-res photo

No, it’s not a logical layout for a car (to preempt a certain comment bound to be made by Casey — strange timing there), but I’ll be damned if the slope nose isn’t a gorgeous car. I’m pretty sure I’d rather drive a 951-era 944 (or later, a 968), but looks wise, this has it beat.

If—well, when—you lose control of these earlier 911s, the general consensus seems to be that you’ll either crash or shit yourself. Perhaps both.

I feel far worse for the car than I do the driver. I love the E36 M3 (and the stock wheels) almost as much as I love the E30 M3.

Bah, and Break throws in a 30 second ad beforehand. You can just go here instead.

OS X Server Virtualized? Why?

Does anyone actually use OS X Server in a capacity when they’d want to virtualize it? I’m not knocking OS X Server—I think it can be quite useful for small businesses without much in the way of IT expertise, actually. But most anything where virtualization comes into play involves scaling, and that almost always means Linux, Solaris, or maybe Windows. But certainly not OS X Server.

IT Darwinism

If you claim to be a “hacker,” and you don’t understand what 127.0.0.1 is, this is what results. It’s almost too stupid to be true, but then again, what’s the saying? Genius has a limit, but stupidity has no such handicap?

Tiger Woods Announces Return To Sex

Proving once again that The Onion is comedy gold…

Coolest. Intro. Ever. I think I still have this on some tapes. Beta tapes. Yes, seriously. No, I’m not that old. The good part starts at 45 seconds in, hah.

1000 Days. Yay.

Well, 1001 days, really. On my home firewall, which has been pretty well locked down:

[elbles@socrates ~]$ uptime

10:43:07 up 1001 days,  1:24,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

Whenever this guy dies, this is what’ll replace it.

goldenrat1o: notthatkindagay: switchblades: therealestsocksinthegame:dustinc85:astronaught: “In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.” -Andrea Fay Friedman, voice actress played the character depicted as having Down syndrome on the recent episode of Family Guy. Of special significance, Friedman herself has Down syndrome. (via NYT)

goldenrat1o:

notthatkindagay:

switchblades:

therealestsocksinthegame:dustinc85:astronaught:

“In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.”

-Andrea Fay Friedman, voice actress played the character depicted as having Down syndrome on the recent episode of Family Guy. Of special significance, Friedman herself has Down syndrome. (via NYT)

(this post was reblogged from cyn1cal)