Every Joke Has A Part Of A Joke

Kids, get away from appliances, we're gonna reboot the house!

I wish I could take the credit for this phrase, but I can't. This was said by my friend and colleague Frank Jones. What makes it interesting is that he said in 1997, when the talks of home automation were rudimentary and sounded rather like jokes. In fact, it *was* intended to be a joke. Turned out to be a prophecy.

Jumping back to today - they're going to have App Store for cars. Whereas this idea is somewhat overdue already (just look at the progress of dedicated GPS devices and compare it with the clunky and stone age old GPS in your car, even if it is a few months old, and you'll see what I mean), it is indeed scary. Just take a look at the evolution of G1 software, which is in a perpetual beta house of dreams, and shudder.

I think that was a cue for Microsoft Car jokes to materialize.

Just Say No: Torin Aluminum Racing Jack 1.5 Ton

Two instances of this model were observed doing exactly the same thing: blowing the gasket when the lift height exceeds their design value.

You don't get a warning - it's just the next time you pump the handle to lift the car a bit more, it suddenly goes quite a bit down instead of a little bit up, and you see a puddle of oil on the floor under the jack.

Come on, even my old $19.95 Larin jack has the safety valve, for this price the thing must be tolerant to such a simple condition... Wonder if there was a bad batch, and whether Torin is going to issue a recall.

Open Letter To BMW Dealerships

To whom it may concern:

I just called the <witheld to protect the guilty> dealership to verify what part numbers I need for a specific repair, and was told "We do not give out part numbers, only prices".

I was understandably shaken, because, you know, BMW is a pretty complicated car, and it is kind of difficult to make sure that you are not spending hundreds, and even more often, thousands of dollars just to piss off the seller even more when it turns out that the part you've bought doesn't fit, because it is not the part you actually needed, or the car the part is for is not the car you have (and I don't have to explain to you how many different sub-revisions BMW has).

When I got over the shock, I said, "Why?" and got the answer "Because people call us just to find out part numbers, waste our time and then go buy the same parts on Internet".

Well...

Tough shit.

You were not shy to leverage your unique position of the seller of "The Ultimate Driving Machine" when you were selling the car to us.

You were not shy to gouge us by upselling expensive options that you knew would be wrong or deadly (rear side airbags in a sedan to the family with two kids about five years of age - you knew they will come disabled, with a big red sticker, right?)

You were not shy to repeatedly screw us over by providing substandard service (any BMW owner knows the difference between "BMW quality" and "BMW service quality").

While doing that, you were not shy to charge exorbitant prices for parts and service.

And now you are complaining?

Well, tell you what - you keep doing that, and I will sell my BMW to anyone stupid enough to buy it, given all the above, never buy a BMW again, and switch to a brand that is customer friendly. I've had just about enough of your attitude.

Oh, and I have a suggestion for you - you are in a best position to compete with independent parts retailers because you have direct access to *the* original equipment manufacturer, and you already have distribution channels set up. Why don't you actually start leveraging your competitive advantage instead of screwing us over?

And then, maybe, just maybe, the artificially inflated price becomes appealing enough that somebody will part with their hard earned money and buys the product you're selling, and you, yes, you don't lose your job.

Hell Hath No Fury Like Big Three Scorned?

Just read an article about cars of 2020 and remembered the conversation I've had recently. The person I was talking to said "Oh yeah, *now* you will start seeing real progress!" I said "Why?" and got this in return:

Until now, all the progress regarding green technologies (at least in US) was hampered by the fact that the Big Three had a very cozy relation with the Big Oil and didn't have a need to do anything at all. The demand for vehicles with high gas consumption was lobbied and advertised, and all was well and good.

And then, he said, the oil prices skyrocketed.

The automotive industry, he said, felt betrayed. They've been delivered a death blow at the moment they weren't doing so well already.

Now they're pissed and won't try to appease the Big Oil anymore. They've been demonstrated that no amount of lobbying and "vendor relations" gives them any guarantees when there is a chance of reaping an immediate benefit. In other words, Exxon reports record profits, whereas for Big Three, a government donation is considered. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

Oh well.

Whereas I don't believe that the problems the Big Three is having is closely related to gas prices (other manufacturers have been successfully chasing them into the single MPG territory), but rather due to extreme crappiness of their products, it would definitely be interesting to see what they'll come up with. So far, nothing spectacular - say, Ford's hybrid SUVs have no more appeal to me than their regular SUVs - their Tin Lizzy pedigree shows way too well. And with everybody jumping on the green bandwagon, they will have to do much better than they did before in order to become competitive again.

I'm not holding my breath.