02.11.09
U.S Car Makers Continue to be Wrong
Well, I’m not one to say I told you so, so I won’t say that. That’s tacky. But I was right.
I am following up on my earlier blog comment about U.S. Carmakers being Idiots. They are, of course. But the latest rounds of corporate bailouts just reinforces that fact (yes, it is a fact). The Big-3 companys are failing because they are idiots. We are bailing them out (because we are idiots). And the Big-3 uses the bailout money in typical fashion, to pay huge salaries to the CEOs (who are idiots); for extravagant corporate retreats (obviously full of idiots); and, finally, for producing…..what? Nothing new. Same old rhetoric as before…99.9% petroleum cars, 0.1% alternative fuel cars, lots of eyewash and phoney advertising, no real effort or expenditures on what people really want/need…cheap cars that run on something other than gasoline. The very first condition of the bailout SHOULD have been…fire the top four levels of management. They are clueless and stupid and stuck in their old stodgy unsuccessful ways. They are failures. They should not be rewarded, for anything. If you need a definition of the term “Loser”, there you go…look no further than the upper management at our own Big-3. Yep…they are still idiots.
02.03.09
Microsoft Vista is just horrible
I bought a new Sony laptop. I like Sony because any Sony I have ever owned has worked until the day I got rid of it, sometimes for decades. They are a quality name brand.
Anyway, the new laptop came with Vista installed. So, okay, I figured I might as well accept the change…after all, newer is better, right?
OMG…Vista is simply horrible. It is an Operating System written by geeks for geeks. Now I am forced to understand administrative rights and read/write permissions and a ton of geeky stuff that I never had to know in any previous Microsoft OS. And, for the record, I don’t want to know it. I just want to read my email, post my blog, and run some occasional apps. It is no longer fun.
Vista continually asks me for permission to run what I want it to run. I am the administrator…I shouldn’t have to give permission when I want to run my programs.
Vista won’t download. When I try, it tells me I don’t have permission. From whom? To do what? Very sucky.
And lockups!!! OMG…this system will lockup solid just by looking at it the wrong way! Really, using IE or Firefox and clicking a little too quickly on links will lock the system so tightly that even Ctrl-Alt-Del fails to work. You are forced to do a hard re-boot, which naturally entails all the funky blue screens the next time you boot up.
Okay, so I finally had enough of Vista’s horrific, unfriendly behavior so I decided to go to the Sony web site and get the XP drivers so I could reformat the hard drive and install my good old reliable XP Pro. Well, guess what…Sony, obviously in cahoots with Microsoft, doesn’t have XP drivers for this laptop. Sony, Sony, Sony…for the first time since I was born, you have disappointed me royally. You should simply and naturally assume that there will be a breadth of users out here in the real world who have a breadth of operating system requirements, and support your product(s) with appropriate drivers for any of them, or at least the most widely used. But no, so sorry, Vista only.
Well, I am undeterred. Sony, your challenge has been accepted…I have started my search for the myriad of required XP drivers from Intel and others as to make my Sony laptop work the way is should have worked out of the box. Reliably. Easily. Ungeekably. A happy, friendly experience. In other words, without Vista. Once I have the required driver sets, and my laptop is working under XP, I will return and post the places where I found all of the appropriate drivers. Because, if you have found this post, you are probably going through something like I am. And, since Sony (bad, bad Sony!) isn’t going to step up to the plate any time soon, we need to take appropriate action to support ourselves.
And, if you have ALREADY gone through this nightmare yourself and found some good drivers, pass them along to me so I can post them here (and give you some well deserved credit).
Mr. Gates, I do respect you and the work you have done in the past, but you really slipped up with the Vista operating system. The cool dude in the Apple commercial is right…Vista is really bad. You truly need to do some serious backpeddling to recover from this horrible OS, because I am very representative of the baby boom demographic, and I can guarantee you if I am unhappy with you, so are MILLIONS of others. Vista sucks. Either pull it off of the shelves, or rejoice in the sound of millions of MS Vista users swinging over to Apple OS.
Did I mention that Vista sucks? Just checking…
07.03.08
U.S. Carmakers Are Always Wrong
I read a short article in the newspaper yesterday and I’ve been fuming about it since. And what better place to fume than my blog? The title of the article was Carmakers say fuel-economy proposal too aggressive. The crux of the article was that the “Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers” wrote 70 pages “explaining” (wah-wah-wah) why the government proposed rules for increasing fuel economy in cars by 4.5% per year from 2011 to 2015 is “too hard”. The “Alliance of Cry Babies who Don’t Give a Carp About the Planet” said in their response that this proposal “would require manufacturers to expend resources at a pace that is excessive given the fact that the auto industry is already under economic stress”.
Idiots.
I mean, why are they under “economic stress” anyway? Is it because they make a product that people want? No. Is it because they make a fuel efficient automobile? No. Is it because they have an aggressive engineering shop who has the latitude to design the cars people actually want? No. it is the opposite. Economic stress means that they aren’t making money. And they aren’t making money because they aren’t making cars that people want. And they aren’t making cars that people want because they are, and always have been, terrible and horrible at responding to peoples actual needs, even though those needs are visible even to a box turtle years in advance. I mean, how long have most of us known that gasoline was reaching unreasonable levels? 3, 4 years?
Idiots.
The response from the “Alliance of MudHeads Who Make Excessively Big Cars” is less of a response to a good proposal and more of a list of excuses why they don’t want to stop making big cars with big engines which burn big fuel. Meanwhile the Japanese are busying themselves improving and producing hydrogen cars; the French and Indians are producing cars that run on compressed air; the Brazilians are running their cars on Ethyl Alcohol. And the American Carmakers? Living as usual in the side pockets of the Arabs who just keep getting richer and richer as they drive the U.S. into recession and eventual depression.
Idiots.
Why is it that the American car industry is Always behind the power curve when it comes to knowing what people want? Americans are faced with $6.00 per gallon gasoline in the not-to-distant future, and what is the “Alliance of Big Heavy Petroleum Burning Cars” doing? Supporting the industry; an industry that is still producing Hummers and Escalades and Silverados, even while used car lots are filling up with these vehicles because nobody can afford them anymore.
Idiots.
Why is it that the automobile manufacturers are posting record losses this year? Hint: it is NOT because people want gas hogs. Yet gas hogs are what the automobile manufacturers keep producing and will produce until they finally get jolted from their ignorant bliss by imported hydrogen cars.
Idiots.
Instead of bellyaching and crying and whining about the government’s “unrealistic” proposal, you would think that the car industry would be on the leading edge; that their marketing gurus would be yelling at the top of their lungs, “Stop the manufacturing lines! We need to retool!”. Nope. They want to whine. They want to complain. They want to keep making 15 MPG cars and then are actually confused when nobody buys them. They just keep thinking that everything will be alright. It isn’t, and it hasn’t been for a long time.
Idiots.
I want these idiots to wake up. At least one of them, anyway. How about you, Chrysler? You brought Lee Ioacoca back to bail your stupid butts out (again). Hey Lee…have you thought about any alternative fuel autos yet? Well, probably not. Excuses are easier to make than profits. And “Big Oil” would get laws passed even if you did.
So I guess we are the bigger idiots for not making more noise.
04.14.08
CBS…those fake reality shows just GOTTA go!
I mentioned in an earlier post that I had two issues with CBS programming. I addressed the first (fictitious programming schedules), so here is the other: fake reality shows, where a bunch of wanna-be acters sadly act their way through some programmed reality. Jeeze, guys, this format appealed to boppers several years ago, but get a clue! Those youngsters have moved on. These shows are utterly worthless, totally stupid, completely staged, and, unless you have missed the point here, a total waste of time. Advertisers…pull out now, before it is too late! Why on earth do you want to have your corporate identity associated with these shabby productions!
Last night, because CBS can’t follow their own programming schedule, I actually watched the end of Big Brother. OMG!!! What a piece of tripe! These pseudo-acters prancing around pretending to be “real” (it probably took multiple takes to get some of those scenes to be believable). Jeeze-Louise, CBS…surely you can come up with something…anything…better than this! Advertisers…get a clue! I am definitely not alone in this opinion. Use your money for R&D or college grants…something that is actually beneficial and educational! Big Brother sucks! It’s about as close to ”reality” as a Superman cartoon and one tenth as interesting (unless you are a student of bad acting, whereupon it is great material!)
The days of “Reality” television are over. Like Wrestling, everybody knows they are staged productions, and let’s face it…they lost their novelty years ago. Move on, CBS!
CBS…c’mon, guys; a schedule is a schedule!
CBS, this is about your programming practices. There are two aspects of your programming that grind my gizzard. First, the fact that you allow sporting events to overrun regular programming. I know when my favorite shows come on, like 60 Minutes and Cold Case, but they seldom actually DO come on when you say they will.
Last night I settled down to watch 60 Minutes. Sure enough, per usual, I was stuck watching the absolute most boring sport in the history of televised sports….Golf. I don’t care about Golf. The very most I would ever want to see pertaining to a golf match might be 5 minutes of highlights. The rest of it is….boring.
But the same thing happens with all televised sports on CBS…if it runs long, nobody at CBS cares. Nobody at CBS gives a Carp about the audience and our lives and our schedules.
If I was running the network, that would stop. Sports can be stuck in the same schedule block as any other program. There should be no preference of sports fans over normal people (you read that right). If the sport runs long, tough! Read about it in the paper. Or purchase ESPN or the 143 other cable/satellite sport channels. I have every right to watch 60 Minutes at the scheduled time, and certainly my rights are no less important than those of any sweaty, overweight couch potato.
When it comes to programming, a television program should come on when you say it will, CBS. I bet the advertisers who spend big bucks on prime time advertising are peeved when their ads get shoved out to late-night. CBS doesn’t care. I am certainly peeved that I can’t expect CBS to stick to their own program schedule. Again, CBS doesn’t care.
I am the voice of the aging Baby Boomer, CBS. We carry a big $$$tick. Get a clue.
03.20.08
Well, I’m here…
Okay, I was dragged kicking and screaming into the world of blogs. So, now that I’m here, I might as well write something newsworthy. Being old, I have lots of thoughts on lots of topics. I also don’t like fluff…I write distinctly and to-the-point, so don’t expect a whole lot of fluffy, feel-goody, politically correct details.
Let’s get this party started (I like Pink…hey, I’m old but I ain’t dead!) . . .
