Slashdot Mirror

All BMWs are cars, but not all cars are BMWs.

Nope, see here. :)

BMW makes cars, which are not "green" by any standard. You want green, invest in buses, trains, bikes, etc. Not more cars.

This is pretty clearly a greenwashing attempt by BMW.

Yes, and I am OK with that...you see they do not make trains, bikes, (or even buses?)

I know BMW makes "bikes" in a sense, and another German car company makes buses and sold them in the USA until the 1964 chicken tax.

(no passenger capacity)

His description never said anything about passenger capacity.
Also, by his definition, some motorcycles would be considered cars (drive shaft, with 2 wheels).

M3? Please. Four wheels is two too many.

If you're looking for a REAL BMW, look no further.

That type of exploit is worth at least a brand new BMW.

Schwab

> So, if you slap the BMW name on a hot cycle, does that make it a high performance, luxury vehicle?

You mean like these hot cycles?

As long as I'm going to lust over a BMW, it might as well be the K 1200 R. I'll give up the extra 4 HP for something that I think looks better and doesn't have to have expensive fairings replaced when I lay it down to avoid that old lady crossing the street.

from BMW's motorcycle page:
the K 1200 S hurls you from a dead stop to sixty mph in just 2.8 sec

So (nearly) did a blanket 100PS power limit on every motorcycle manufactured in or imported into the EC. This was former Commissioner Martin Bangemann's pet project, and it took intensive lobbying from among others, the Motorcycle Action Group and Triumph Motorcycles to slow it down, but it only died when Bangemann himself ceased to be a Commissioner.
This was a virtally unresearched, transparently anti-competitive (Bangemann was trying to protect BMW, who, up until about five years ago, had a similar self-imposed limit) piece of legislation, supported by almost no-one else and more than once rejected by the European Parliament, yet it still took the downfall of its sponsor to kill it.

Moral?
EU Commissioners have far too much power, far too little responsibility, and are too difficult to get rid of.

Incidentally, I'm uncertain whether BMW themselves actually had anything to do with this mess, but shortly afterward, they lifted their self-imposed limit and now make some very nice bikes.

Also, CTFL, please, so you can see that the F650CS audio system is in fact a pair of external speakers mounted in front of the rider.

It's a damned fun little bike, just so you know. It's fuel injected, agile, torquey, gets around 60MPG, can run 80MPH all day long, and is one of the cheapest, lightest machines you can get with belt drive and ABS.

It's a damned fun little bike, just so you know. It's fuel injected, agile, torquey, gets around 60MPG, can run 80MPH all day long, and is one of the cheapest, lightest machines you can get with belt drive and ABS.

Recently at a motorcycle show I learned that one BMW's newest bikes, the F650CS, comes with an iPod when you purchase the bike: this page has details ...cute

I already have a very portable gadget with specs close to that (a bit less VRAM, but a big HD). My iPod.
If I could plug it into the car audio system and have the steering column channel change controls drive it. All it woudl need is a custom dash socket for it, with the headphone jack and FireWire power adaptor.

BMW is doing it with motorbikes already.

I have windows '98. When that will no longer suffice, I will remove myself from the PC market. At that time, those 'old' PS2's and X-Box's should be available for around $100 on eBay.

Or I'll dump the money into a MAME cab, or pick up a Battlezone, Frogger, or any of a dozen video arcade games I'd like to have.

The most important thing is that relative to the cost of games, the cost of Windows is trivial. I spent around $40 for Roller Coaster Tycoon and Baldur's Gate. More for Red Alert and some other RTS games. I would have bought Deus Ex at full price when it came out, but had other things to do with my time. Now, let's say I spend $20/month on games. Probably close to what I spend. Now let's say I have to upgrade Windows every three years (reasonable, given '95, '98, and the current OSes fighting it out now). Let's further assume that I pay the full $209 cost. That's less than $7 per month. Keeping current hardware costs more than that. ($150 video card every two years, $150+ for processor/mobo a little less often).

It ain't cost. I've got enough money. Trust me. My bike probably costs more than the car of the average /. reader.

If there are no more games... big fucking deal. Way more to do with life than engage in a twitch fest.