GM vs Microsoft

[cimetière]

GM vs MICROSOFTFor all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way
computers have enhanced our lives, read on. 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 $25.00 cars that got 1,000
miles to the gallon".

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release
stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we
would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just
love this part):

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 manoeuvre 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. Macintosh 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 percent 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 antenna.
"CTRL/ALT/Delete"

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.


--
*
Daniel
www.dromadaire.com/cimetiere/ouonsenva
ou
www.dromadaire.com/cimetiere/psychologie

 

[Tim]

Ok, that applies to windows 3.0 on a 640 KB machine with static damage.

XP - if it were a car, on the other hand would be nearly 100% burglar proof
against all but the very best FBI / KGB sponsored operatives in the world.
MS would be proactively supplying automatically installed security updates
that would protect against that rare chance that the hand full of car
thieves with the latest techniques could break into or steal your car.

However, even though this process is automatic, millions of car owners will
have their cars stolen each year cos' they don't lock them, leave the keys
in the ignition with the engine running. Whats more they have all there
wealth sitting on the front seat for all to see.

Many will persist in tinkering with the engine, installing bells and whistle
along with chrome plated grease nipples all of which will be detrimental to
the reliability of the car. In response MS will be updating the car engine
(for free again) continuously so that owners can install what they want,
have it work 100% first time every time and safe guard the total car
perfomance, and will not have to worry about locks, modifications, abuse,
failure to service, deliberate crashes at full speed into brick walls and so
on.

If it were a car... You would be able to get all international TV stations
with perfect reception on and endless repertoire of free TV's, stereos, etc
along wiht free newspapers delivered to passengers while they rest in
absolute air conditioned luxury... You would be instantly able to paint /
repaint it in whatever colour scheme you wanted, would have a maximum
carrying capacity of now over 20 billion people (minimum), and their
luggage. Note the art gallery included will have no admission fee nor would
there be any "costs" associated with the hot audio cd / tape libraries
people will insist on installing.

Need I go on?

 

[Rob Stow]

Ok, that applies to windows 3.0 on a 640 KB machine with static damage.

XP - if it were a car, on the other hand would be nearly 100% burglar proof
against all but the very best FBI / KGB sponsored operatives in the world.

LOL ! Expecting XP to protect your computer is like expecting
a prayer to protect your dick from a skanky ho. What sandy
beach has your head been buried in since XP was released ?

 

[Tim]

Well,

I've been to a few really nice beachs recently, but aside from that I am not
in the habit of putting my head below ground level - must be a past time of
GM owners or something.

Realistically, if you keep your system patched, don't go out of your way to
download and install spyware, viruses, trojans, backdoors, rats, etc. your
system will be quite safe. But alas most people don't and that is the
tragedy. An enormous number of people have AV software and enormouse
proportion of the installations are broken - license expired yonks ago.

I'll stick by what I said about having your wealth on the front seat of a
car. XP is exceedingly safer. The average car and even modern ones with
strong locks are security holes. I don't trust them ever and never should
you. 10 year old kids with no education yet alone any technical skills can
get into any car they want. It does take quite some skill to write a worm
and even then by far most are so generic that with a moderate amount of
patching you will not be infected. Take slammer as an example - the patch
had been out for 6 months.

As for reliability... XP crash? Invariably hardware fault. Car stall? Car
Fault.

- Tim

 

[KJ]

Maybe he should have said only explorer.exe crashes....perhaps akin to
having the complete interior of the car getting trashed, then reappear stark
white, with none of the amenities you ordered with your car?

 

[Creeping Stone]

Well,

Realistically, if you keep your system patched, don't go out of your way to
download and install spyware, viruses, trojans, backdoors, rats, etc. your
system will be quite safe.

Patches are brought out after the event, sometimes months after new
vulnerabilities are reported.
This years RPC worms were nothing like as damaging as they could have been,
at the same time, the same vulnerabilities could just as easily have been
used to completely trash peoples data. Mostly the authors of these new
worms and virii which come out are doing everyone a favour, breaking into
peoples houses and leaving little notes on the fridge saying 'get your
locks fixed'
Luckily, my firewall rules have protected my system so far - winxp's
default rules didnt though this year, did they?

Any windows installation needs to be heavily modified, and expertly
administered before its anywhere near secure - I try and be relatively
tiresome to hack, I think thats all one can do with windows.

But alas most people don't and that is the
tragedy. An enormous number of people have AV software and enormouse
proportion of the installations are broken - license expired yonks ago.

So we need to purchase lots of extra services to secure our machines,
thats got to be a big part of the status quo.

I'll stick by what I said about having your wealth on the front seat of a
car. XP is exceedingly safer. The average car and even modern ones with
strong locks are security holes. I don't trust them ever and never should
you. 10 year old kids with no education yet alone any technical skills can
get into any car they want. It does take quite some skill to write a worm
and even then by far most are so generic that with a moderate amount of
patching you will not be infected. Take slammer as an example - the patch
had been out for 6 months.

I just put some of my wealth in an uncrackable encypted file -all my
accounts and passes, some card nos. etc. Its totaly secure now, cant be
cracked,

only prob is - I forgotten its password now :¬/

 

[dgk]

Ok, that applies to windows 3.0 on a 640 KB machine with static damage.

XP - if it were a car, on the other hand would be nearly 100% burglar proof
against all but the very best FBI / KGB sponsored operatives in the world.
MS would be proactively supplying automatically installed security updates
that would protect against that rare chance that the hand full of car
thieves with the latest techniques could break into or steal your car.

However, even though this process is automatic, millions of car owners will
have their cars stolen each year cos' they don't lock them, leave the keys
in the ignition with the engine running. Whats more they have all there
wealth sitting on the front seat for all to see.

Many will persist in tinkering with the engine, installing bells and whistle
along with chrome plated grease nipples all of which will be detrimental to
the reliability of the car. In response MS will be updating the car engine
(for free again) continuously so that owners can install what they want,
have it work 100% first time every time and safe guard the total car
perfomance, and will not have to worry about locks, modifications, abuse,
failure to service, deliberate crashes at full speed into brick walls and so
on.

If it were a car... You would be able to get all international TV stations
with perfect reception on and endless repertoire of free TV's, stereos, etc
along wiht free newspapers delivered to passengers while they rest in
absolute air conditioned luxury... You would be instantly able to paint /
repaint it in whatever colour scheme you wanted, would have a maximum
carrying capacity of now over 20 billion people (minimum), and their
luggage. Note the art gallery included will have no admission fee nor would
there be any "costs" associated with the hot audio cd / tape libraries
people will insist on installing.

Need I go on?

I was going to write something like this but it wouldn't have been
half as good. Considering the staggering complexity of something like
XP, I think it is remarkable that it is as good as it is.