The real solution to all this, of course, is a single-payer system.
Ding ding! You win a cookie! I've only been saying this for a couple decades now myself (as well as millions of other Americans). Yet every time someone even considers proposing it in government they are shouted down as "Un-American" and "communists". Somehow this is what counts for political discourse in this country now. It is far more important to protect corporate profit than it could ever be to protect human life.
This is just another case of conservatives (this time the slashdot variety, but that isn't terribly important) trying to jockey for position to take credit if the Health Insurance Company Bailout Act of 2010 works out well for anyone beyond just the insurance industry. They are planting the ideas of possible potential benefits so that they can say "we told you so" if they pan out. As much as they are bitching (read: exhibiting massive grandstanding) on capital hill right now, the conservatives put themselves in the ultimate can't-lose position here; if it works they can say it was based on what Romney did and if it doesn't they can say it was overreaching.
I really don't see the purpose in giving a mobile phone to a kid who cannot read; just getting them to use it properly and be able to interpret problems with it in a coherent manner would be a huge barrier. Besides you don't want him using it while in school; so why not get him a tablet to keep at home for your videoconferencing?
I would not be opposed to seeing schools offer it as a choice between the two. I was forced to take music courses for quite a while into my school years, in spite of being completely tone deaf. Trying to get me to perform even the simplest of music with any accuracy was hopeless. I would have happily taken coding instead, an indeed I was writing programs in BASIC during my typing courses at the same school when I was bored from that curriculum.
but losing license could screw up your *whole* life...
And getting run over by some shithead who took their eyes off the road completely to read and write a text message could be even worse. There is no excuse for that kind of disregard for public safety, none. The law needs to come down hard on these people to get the point across. If they have to walk, bum rides, or take public transportation, they just might figure it out.
Reading and writing text messages doesn't happen by accident. However we can prevent the accidents that can occur from that degree of epic stupidity.
And the parents who have a swimming pool at their house are generally more dangerous than those who have guns lying around.
First of all, your comparison is off topic. For the comparison to be in line with my comment it would have to discuss how often children drown other people in their own pool. I was specifically mentioning children who kill other people with guns that are left lying around.
Second, your comparison doesn't make sense from an observable danger standpoint. If you are concerned about pools, you can see them when you are at someone's house. If you are afraid of pools, don't go to their house. You cannot see an unlocked weapon left around carelessly as easily. Pools take up a huge amount of space; a weapon can take up very little.
Drivers caught texting while driving should lose their license for a year on the spot on the first offense, no exceptions. Such wanton disregard for public safety is inexcusable. The fact that the tickets are such a minor offense right now does practically nothing to discourage this dangerous behavior.
While one doesn't lead to another, it doesn't surprise me when young kids who play GTA end up killing people with family members' guns while still young themselves. While almost no parents are perfect, plenty of parents are really, really, dreadfully awful. The parents who buy these games for young kids are often cut from the same fabric that leave loaded weapons laying around the house while unsupervised kids are running around.
Wow, I am sorry for you. I am sorry that you are so emotionally attached to a hideously ugly - and hideously average - car that you can't reply to my comment without reducing yourself to sligning an insult. You even admitted that it is not the best in its class yet you reply to my comments by insulting me when I point out that it is a really truly boring vehicle. If a vehicle cannot establish itself to be the best in its class - regardless of how large or small you define its class ot be - then it is best described as boring.
Why you need to make this personal is wholly unclear. I did not insult you personally, yet you have repeatedly slung insults at me. Why this car is so important to you that you need to make it personal is anyone's guess. Would it make you feel better if I closed by insulting your mother so that you can say we each hurled insults at each other? Well, too bad; I'm not going there.
From what I've seen, it seems that >90% of steam titles are various variants of FPS titles. On top of that the top sellers for XBox and PS3 are FPS as well. Eventually the market will hit saturation; we haven't really seen a technological jump in the genre in some time to the best of my understanding. What would Steam sell once the FPS fad is up and people want to play games that involve something other than shootting/stabbing high res people/zombies?
Totally agree with all points but the last assumption; That the "fad" ends. My journey down the fps highway began with Doom, and there were others before it, it's been since 95 for me. A long "fad".
Up to this point there has been a fair bit of innovation; from Wolfenstein to Doom to Quake to Half-Life to all the various shooters we have now. However over the past 5-6 years very little has changed but the missions and the characters. We haven't seen an improvement in the physics, the gameplay, the interactions, and most certainly not in the plot. You would have a hard time explaining to anyone who doesn't self-identify as a "gamer" what the difference is between any $60+ FPS titles on the market for the same system right now.
A fad can keep going for a long time as long as it keeps changing. FPS titles are no longer changing; hence the fad will eventually die. The question is whether or not any software developers will be ready to write non-FPS games when that happens.
From what I've seen, it seems that >90% of steam titles are various variants of FPS titles. On top of that the top sellers for XBox and PS3 are FPS as well. Eventually the market will hit saturation; we haven't really seen a technological jump in the genre in some time to the best of my understanding. What would Steam sell once the FPS fad is up and people want to play games that involve something other than shootting/stabbing high res people/zombies?
No, that's how a pedantic moron who is trying to detract from his displayed stupidity does it. I obviously know how to use them, but I obviously am tiring of wasting the effort on a moron.
Wow, I'm sorry to see that your argument has dissolved so badly in your own hands as to force you to resort to petty insults.
I stated not boring. You stated not better.
Oh, I see. You have already forgotten that I started out by saying that every car Toyota makes is boring.
Boring != not better.
If a car is not better than its competition, it is almost always boring unless it has some astronomical fault (such as being catastrophically unreliable). Just simply making a car catastrophically ugly does not make it cease to be boring, it just becomes ugly and boring.
An FJ does offroad better than an XTerra, but does onroad better than the Jeep. It's more expensive than the XTerra, but cheaper than a similarly loaded Jeep.
So the FJ is not better than either of its competitors for what it would actually be used for. It is, however, much much uglier than either. Its a lousy compromise and its boring as well.
And Toyota has the longest continuous AWD experience of any of those companies.
That's debatable and diverging even further from the topic.
Would it really kill you to use the quote tag so you don't look like a lazy idiot? I had to read back to a previous comment to find that you indeed started by quoting yourself, then going to a quote from my own post. Here is how an intelligent person uses the quotes here:
Totota does make a non-boring car.
The car you refer to is not better in any way
You have basic reading comprehension issues.
That said, my point remains valid. When a car offers no advantages over any other cars in the same segment, in any way shape or form, it is the definition of boring. They could have just as well painted it beige to accentuate that it is just a sad copy of vehicles that are already on the market for the same amount of money. Instead they decided to turn the ugly up to eleven, which does not make the vehicle not boring, it just makes it ugly.
I'm sorry that this is so difficult for you to grasp, that you had to reach for the tired "reading comprehension" meme to support your failed argument. Next time, you might want to try pretending that you live in 2008 and go for "hyperventilation". The "reading comprehension" defense is so very 2003. And of course, when you can't use some very simple html you don't exactly make yourself into a poster child for mastery of such a skill.
Again, ugly wasn't the criteria I was opposing -- it was boring. By all accounts it's a very fun off-roader competing with the likes of the Jeep Wrangler and the Nissan XTerra, and the price is competitive. So I am right, Totota does make a non-boring car.
No, you're not right. The car you refer to is not better in any way than others in the same class, and offers no additional value. The only thing it brings to the table is its astonishing degree of ugliness. If, by chance, you see ugliness as a cure for boredom, then I guess to you that is enough. For people who actually want vehicles with meaningful features when compared against others that target the same market, that generally is insufficient.
But I don't think it's ugly. It looks like a rally truck, and I like rally.
I think it looks like it was already crashed, and the owner replaced half the body panels with ones from the first similar vehicle he could find in a local boneyard, with complete lack of concern for the fact that they don't line up and are a different color. The only color I have ever seen for an FJ that didn't look terrible was all-black, but that was only "not terrible", it wasn't good in any way. Unfortunately the vast overwhelming majority of FJs are configured with color schemes that make them look like careless hodgepodge instead.
Was there really that much demand for an ugly vehicle with AWD after Pontiac killed the Aztek?
The Aztek wasn't an SUV, more a minivan in SUV guise (basically, an early crossover). It had an AWD system just to give it more traction in bad weather. The FJ is actually a hard-core 4x4 designed with extensive off-road testing. We have generally accepted ugliness in such cars, and it can in fact be seen as good looking for the purpose. Take the Jeep, Land Rover, Scout and HMMWV for example.
In any case, none of the above were at all boring, which was my point. Sadly, the FJ is the only non-boring car Totoya has out now. If you're looking for a sports coupe or sedan, you're out of luck.
So in comparison to the FJ, you can have an equally capable vehicle from another manufacturer for more or less money, depending on what you want., Hence the only thing that makes the FJ remarkable is that it is hideously ugly. I don't really know many people who consider a car that is hideously ugly to be so endearing that it is worth accolades when there is no other distinctive quality to it.
Of course, Toyota did show their thorough mastery of ugly with the last generation of the Celica, where ugly came standard and atrocious blinding ugliness was an available option.
I'm sorry that my writing so greatly challenges your limited intelligence; perhaps by the time you finish the 8th grade you will learn how to read analytically and maybe you'll even figure out the pesky registration system here. Somehow I doubt slashdot will still be in existence that far into the future, but life can be full of surprises.
The key term that you missed is that it was vaporware. When a product is delayed it can become vaporware. For example Duke Nukem Forever was vaporware; it has since been released and is no longer such.
Do you have any actual data to back up your claim that a large publicly traded company has lied to the american consumers?
I made no such claim, numbnuts. My point is just that the Volt was ridiculously delayed. It was at least 2-3 full years late to market for those who were actually paying attention.
Or do you just talk shit out you ass on the internet because you can?
Even for an AC that is a lame closing line. You would have been better off saying something about my mother, it would have made just as much sense.
as astronomically boring as... basically every car Toyota has ever sold in the US in the history of time
MR2
The MR2 was just a more reliable take on the Fiero. It didn't add power or personality - indeed being a Toyota it broke even on the first and subtracted from the latter.
Supra in the past
For a short while the Supra was interesting, then Toyota decided the Americans weren't worthy of a RWD coupe any more and started rebadging Celicas as Supras for us instead.
FJ Cruiser in the present.
Was there really that much demand for an ugly vehicle with AWD after Pontiac killed the Aztek?
If you don't restrict to the US, the 2000 GT too.
Well, I was restricting to the US. Nonetheless there were only 337 2000GTs made. It was also too short for reasonably tall people (Sean Connery for example) to drive and its development didn't lead directly to the development of any other cars. Aside from that and the fact that only 60 ever made it to the US - at prices higher than Jaguars and Porsches of the time - you might have an argument for Toyota having not produced a catastrophically boring car for the US.
I read it as someone who took Econ101 as a freshman, and then decided instead to study actual science that does actual things for actual people. Unfortunately when they transfered from fantasy college to science they were labeled as coming from econoland and hence their degree was branded "econophysics".
Basically, even if GM made the greatest electric car the world will ever see, I don't think they could challenge Tesla with it. GM draws so many negative connotations - especially in the electric car field - that they have a nearly insurmountable obstacle to overcome. Even if they hadn't gone broke and needed the government support, they still would have to face the fact that they killed the EV1 in spite of many efforts from lessees to keep it going. Even if none of that had happened you still have the fact that the Chevy Volt was a contender to knock off Duke Nukem Forever on the vaporware lifetime achievement polls. Even if you ignore all of that you still have the fact that GM hasn't managed to get enough of their engineers in one room long enough to make a mass market hybrid that can outdo the Camry hybrid as a family car.
I for one would love to see GM stick around, so that Ford has more competition. Some of my favorite Fords exist in their current states because they have competition from GM.
Google isn't willing to put their name on something as astronomically boring as... basically every car Toyota has ever sold in the US in the history of time.
A better analogy:
Toyota == HP
VW == Google
You constantly see Toyota on the road, but never envy one. The company that makes drivable cars that middle-class people can afford is VW, but people keep forgetting that they are even around because they can buy something less satisfying from someone else for less money.
And for that matter...
GM == IBM
Both used to be relevant, and both pull the strings in the market in ways that we often don't see immediately. I'm not sure that there is a "Linux" in the car world through one could make an argument for
MacLaren == FreeBSD
As they drop a single new product every year or two, which is a technical marvel but beyond the skill of most users of products that are aimed for similar function. They also have a dedicated team of developers who can tell you exactly why their way is better than everyone else's, even if it looks ridiculous.
First off, I don't own an apple anything. I was apparently the only person in the known universe who did not find the original iPod to be intuitive to use. I am too cheap to buy an iPhone. I despise Apple mice and have no use for an iPad. On top of that I also don't think they've made a relevant computer since switching form G5 CPUs to Intel.
That said, I think they did just fine bringing attention to themselves with their most recent conference. Even NPR covered it and mentioned the reduced price iPhone 5R and the fact that it has a plastic cover instead of a metal one. We've seen news of people already getting in line to buy one at various places around the world.
So while it might not be the most exciting announcement in history, it seems to have done what they wanted to do (sell more crap) just fine.
Slashdot Mirror
The real solution to all this, of course, is a single-payer system.
Ding ding! You win a cookie! I've only been saying this for a couple decades now myself (as well as millions of other Americans). Yet every time someone even considers proposing it in government they are shouted down as "Un-American" and "communists". Somehow this is what counts for political discourse in this country now. It is far more important to protect corporate profit than it could ever be to protect human life.
Obviously, Slashdot is also affected by the US government shutdown . . . I didn't know the government runs it . . .
No, that can't be. Even the US Government, while temporarily shut down, makes more usable sites than this one.
And Apple can't put us in jail
You don't go to jail, you are levied a fine.
for not buying their product.
The product doesn't come from the government, it comes from a health insurance company. It isn't the government's product.
Although I'm sure they'd like to.
The jailed environment of iOS isn't sufficient?
This is just another case of conservatives (this time the slashdot variety, but that isn't terribly important) trying to jockey for position to take credit if the Health Insurance Company Bailout Act of 2010 works out well for anyone beyond just the insurance industry. They are planting the ideas of possible potential benefits so that they can say "we told you so" if they pan out. As much as they are bitching (read: exhibiting massive grandstanding) on capital hill right now, the conservatives put themselves in the ultimate can't-lose position here; if it works they can say it was based on what Romney did and if it doesn't they can say it was overreaching.
I really don't see the purpose in giving a mobile phone to a kid who cannot read; just getting them to use it properly and be able to interpret problems with it in a coherent manner would be a huge barrier. Besides you don't want him using it while in school; so why not get him a tablet to keep at home for your videoconferencing?
I would not be opposed to seeing schools offer it as a choice between the two. I was forced to take music courses for quite a while into my school years, in spite of being completely tone deaf. Trying to get me to perform even the simplest of music with any accuracy was hopeless. I would have happily taken coding instead, an indeed I was writing programs in BASIC during my typing courses at the same school when I was bored from that curriculum.
but losing license could screw up your *whole* life...
And getting run over by some shithead who took their eyes off the road completely to read and write a text message could be even worse. There is no excuse for that kind of disregard for public safety, none. The law needs to come down hard on these people to get the point across. If they have to walk, bum rides, or take public transportation, they just might figure it out.
Reading and writing text messages doesn't happen by accident. However we can prevent the accidents that can occur from that degree of epic stupidity.
And the parents who have a swimming pool at their house are generally more dangerous than those who have guns lying around.
First of all, your comparison is off topic. For the comparison to be in line with my comment it would have to discuss how often children drown other people in their own pool. I was specifically mentioning children who kill other people with guns that are left lying around.
Second, your comparison doesn't make sense from an observable danger standpoint. If you are concerned about pools, you can see them when you are at someone's house. If you are afraid of pools, don't go to their house. You cannot see an unlocked weapon left around carelessly as easily. Pools take up a huge amount of space; a weapon can take up very little.
So your argument really doesn't work here.
Drivers caught texting while driving should lose their license for a year on the spot on the first offense, no exceptions. Such wanton disregard for public safety is inexcusable. The fact that the tickets are such a minor offense right now does practically nothing to discourage this dangerous behavior.
While one doesn't lead to another, it doesn't surprise me when young kids who play GTA end up killing people with family members' guns while still young themselves. While almost no parents are perfect, plenty of parents are really, really, dreadfully awful. The parents who buy these games for young kids are often cut from the same fabric that leave loaded weapons laying around the house while unsupervised kids are running around.
One last time for the simple:
Wow, I am sorry for you. I am sorry that you are so emotionally attached to a hideously ugly - and hideously average - car that you can't reply to my comment without reducing yourself to sligning an insult. You even admitted that it is not the best in its class yet you reply to my comments by insulting me when I point out that it is a really truly boring vehicle. If a vehicle cannot establish itself to be the best in its class - regardless of how large or small you define its class ot be - then it is best described as boring.
Why you need to make this personal is wholly unclear. I did not insult you personally, yet you have repeatedly slung insults at me. Why this car is so important to you that you need to make it personal is anyone's guess. Would it make you feel better if I closed by insulting your mother so that you can say we each hurled insults at each other? Well, too bad; I'm not going there.
From what I've seen, it seems that >90% of steam titles are various variants of FPS titles. On top of that the top sellers for XBox and PS3 are FPS as well. Eventually the market will hit saturation; we haven't really seen a technological jump in the genre in some time to the best of my understanding. What would Steam sell once the FPS fad is up and people want to play games that involve something other than shootting/stabbing high res people/zombies?
Totally agree with all points but the last assumption; That the "fad" ends. My journey down the fps highway began with Doom, and there were others before it, it's been since 95 for me. A long "fad".
Up to this point there has been a fair bit of innovation; from Wolfenstein to Doom to Quake to Half-Life to all the various shooters we have now. However over the past 5-6 years very little has changed but the missions and the characters. We haven't seen an improvement in the physics, the gameplay, the interactions, and most certainly not in the plot. You would have a hard time explaining to anyone who doesn't self-identify as a "gamer" what the difference is between any $60+ FPS titles on the market for the same system right now.
A fad can keep going for a long time as long as it keeps changing. FPS titles are no longer changing; hence the fad will eventually die. The question is whether or not any software developers will be ready to write non-FPS games when that happens.
From what I've seen, it seems that >90% of steam titles are various variants of FPS titles. On top of that the top sellers for XBox and PS3 are FPS as well. Eventually the market will hit saturation; we haven't really seen a technological jump in the genre in some time to the best of my understanding. What would Steam sell once the FPS fad is up and people want to play games that involve something other than shootting/stabbing high res people/zombies?
No, that's how a pedantic moron who is trying to detract from his displayed stupidity does it. I obviously know how to use them, but I obviously am tiring of wasting the effort on a moron.
Wow, I'm sorry to see that your argument has dissolved so badly in your own hands as to force you to resort to petty insults.
I stated not boring. You stated not better.
Oh, I see. You have already forgotten that I started out by saying that every car Toyota makes is boring.
Boring != not better.
If a car is not better than its competition, it is almost always boring unless it has some astronomical fault (such as being catastrophically unreliable). Just simply making a car catastrophically ugly does not make it cease to be boring, it just becomes ugly and boring.
An FJ does offroad better than an XTerra, but does onroad better than the Jeep. It's more expensive than the XTerra, but cheaper than a similarly loaded Jeep.
So the FJ is not better than either of its competitors for what it would actually be used for. It is, however, much much uglier than either. Its a lousy compromise and its boring as well.
And Toyota has the longest continuous AWD experience of any of those companies.
That's debatable and diverging even further from the topic.
Totota does make a non-boring car.
The car you refer to is not better in any way
You have basic reading comprehension issues.
That said, my point remains valid. When a car offers no advantages over any other cars in the same segment, in any way shape or form, it is the definition of boring. They could have just as well painted it beige to accentuate that it is just a sad copy of vehicles that are already on the market for the same amount of money. Instead they decided to turn the ugly up to eleven, which does not make the vehicle not boring, it just makes it ugly.
I'm sorry that this is so difficult for you to grasp, that you had to reach for the tired "reading comprehension" meme to support your failed argument. Next time, you might want to try pretending that you live in 2008 and go for "hyperventilation". The "reading comprehension" defense is so very 2003. And of course, when you can't use some very simple html you don't exactly make yourself into a poster child for mastery of such a skill.
Again, ugly wasn't the criteria I was opposing -- it was boring. By all accounts it's a very fun off-roader competing with the likes of the Jeep Wrangler and the Nissan XTerra, and the price is competitive. So I am right, Totota does make a non-boring car.
No, you're not right. The car you refer to is not better in any way than others in the same class, and offers no additional value. The only thing it brings to the table is its astonishing degree of ugliness. If, by chance, you see ugliness as a cure for boredom, then I guess to you that is enough. For people who actually want vehicles with meaningful features when compared against others that target the same market, that generally is insufficient.
But I don't think it's ugly. It looks like a rally truck, and I like rally.
I think it looks like it was already crashed, and the owner replaced half the body panels with ones from the first similar vehicle he could find in a local boneyard, with complete lack of concern for the fact that they don't line up and are a different color. The only color I have ever seen for an FJ that didn't look terrible was all-black, but that was only "not terrible", it wasn't good in any way. Unfortunately the vast overwhelming majority of FJs are configured with color schemes that make them look like careless hodgepodge instead.
Was there really that much demand for an ugly vehicle with AWD after Pontiac killed the Aztek?
The Aztek wasn't an SUV, more a minivan in SUV guise (basically, an early crossover). It had an AWD system just to give it more traction in bad weather. The FJ is actually a hard-core 4x4 designed with extensive off-road testing. We have generally accepted ugliness in such cars, and it can in fact be seen as good looking for the purpose. Take the Jeep, Land Rover, Scout and HMMWV for example.
In any case, none of the above were at all boring, which was my point. Sadly, the FJ is the only non-boring car Totoya has out now. If you're looking for a sports coupe or sedan, you're out of luck.
So in comparison to the FJ, you can have an equally capable vehicle from another manufacturer for more or less money, depending on what you want., Hence the only thing that makes the FJ remarkable is that it is hideously ugly. I don't really know many people who consider a car that is hideously ugly to be so endearing that it is worth accolades when there is no other distinctive quality to it.
Of course, Toyota did show their thorough mastery of ugly with the last generation of the Celica, where ugly came standard and atrocious blinding ugliness was an available option.
So in what way is the Volt "vaporware?"
I'm sorry that my writing so greatly challenges your limited intelligence; perhaps by the time you finish the 8th grade you will learn how to read analytically and maybe you'll even figure out the pesky registration system here. Somehow I doubt slashdot will still be in existence that far into the future, but life can be full of surprises.
The key term that you missed is that it was vaporware. When a product is delayed it can become vaporware. For example Duke Nukem Forever was vaporware; it has since been released and is no longer such.
Do you have any actual data to back up your claim that a large publicly traded company has lied to the american consumers?
I made no such claim, numbnuts. My point is just that the Volt was ridiculously delayed. It was at least 2-3 full years late to market for those who were actually paying attention.
Or do you just talk shit out you ass on the internet because you can?
Even for an AC that is a lame closing line. You would have been better off saying something about my mother, it would have made just as much sense.
as astronomically boring as ... basically every car Toyota has ever sold in the US in the history of time
MR2
The MR2 was just a more reliable take on the Fiero. It didn't add power or personality - indeed being a Toyota it broke even on the first and subtracted from the latter.
Supra in the past
For a short while the Supra was interesting, then Toyota decided the Americans weren't worthy of a RWD coupe any more and started rebadging Celicas as Supras for us instead.
FJ Cruiser in the present.
Was there really that much demand for an ugly vehicle with AWD after Pontiac killed the Aztek?
If you don't restrict to the US, the 2000 GT too.
Well, I was restricting to the US. Nonetheless there were only 337 2000GTs made. It was also too short for reasonably tall people (Sean Connery for example) to drive and its development didn't lead directly to the development of any other cars. Aside from that and the fact that only 60 ever made it to the US - at prices higher than Jaguars and Porsches of the time - you might have an argument for Toyota having not produced a catastrophically boring car for the US.
I read it as someone who took Econ101 as a freshman, and then decided instead to study actual science that does actual things for actual people. Unfortunately when they transfered from fantasy college to science they were labeled as coming from econoland and hence their degree was branded "econophysics".
Basically, even if GM made the greatest electric car the world will ever see, I don't think they could challenge Tesla with it. GM draws so many negative connotations - especially in the electric car field - that they have a nearly insurmountable obstacle to overcome. Even if they hadn't gone broke and needed the government support, they still would have to face the fact that they killed the EV1 in spite of many efforts from lessees to keep it going. Even if none of that had happened you still have the fact that the Chevy Volt was a contender to knock off Duke Nukem Forever on the vaporware lifetime achievement polls. Even if you ignore all of that you still have the fact that GM hasn't managed to get enough of their engineers in one room long enough to make a mass market hybrid that can outdo the Camry hybrid as a family car.
I for one would love to see GM stick around, so that Ford has more competition. Some of my favorite Fords exist in their current states because they have competition from GM.
Toyota == Google
Google isn't willing to put their name on something as astronomically boring as ... basically every car Toyota has ever sold in the US in the history of time.
A better analogy:
Toyota == HP
VW == Google
You constantly see Toyota on the road, but never envy one. The company that makes drivable cars that middle-class people can afford is VW, but people keep forgetting that they are even around because they can buy something less satisfying from someone else for less money.
And for that matter...
GM == IBM
Both used to be relevant, and both pull the strings in the market in ways that we often don't see immediately. I'm not sure that there is a "Linux" in the car world through one could make an argument for
MacLaren == FreeBSD
As they drop a single new product every year or two, which is a technical marvel but beyond the skill of most users of products that are aimed for similar function. They also have a dedicated team of developers who can tell you exactly why their way is better than everyone else's, even if it looks ridiculous.
1.5M / 30M is 5%, not 3.5%. This is not a difficult calculation people.
11 billion miles / 35 years / 365 days / 24 hours = 35,877 miles per hour.
The fastest plane that has ever flown on earth is the SR71 blackbird and it topped out at around 2,200 mph. This humble probe beat it by a long shot.
Of course, Voyager doesn't have to worry much about friction, or gravity... But still an impressive speed.
First off, I don't own an apple anything. I was apparently the only person in the known universe who did not find the original iPod to be intuitive to use. I am too cheap to buy an iPhone. I despise Apple mice and have no use for an iPad. On top of that I also don't think they've made a relevant computer since switching form G5 CPUs to Intel.
That said, I think they did just fine bringing attention to themselves with their most recent conference. Even NPR covered it and mentioned the reduced price iPhone 5R and the fact that it has a plastic cover instead of a metal one. We've seen news of people already getting in line to buy one at various places around the world.
So while it might not be the most exciting announcement in history, it seems to have done what they wanted to do (sell more crap) just fine.