I haven't bought a distro since SuSE 6.1 in 1999. Anything newer has been downloaded by myself or someone else in the local Linux users group. Until someone gave me a machine that had Win95 on it a couple months ago, I didn't have a Windows box for couple years [I was going to install linux on it, but decided it could be useful for playing w/ Samba]. So unless buying a game or two from Loki counts, the amount spent on linux and Windows is the same: zero.
Go read the Findings of Fact for the MS-DOJ case read the part about the licensing of Windows 95 to IBM. The OEMs that did whatever MS wanted got Win95 early and at a cheaper price than those who didn't cave in. IIRC, IBM didn't get Win95 until the night of the consumer launch. Which considering the amount of time it takes to test it on the hardware, write any necessary drivers, get the systems into the supply chain, etc. it hurt IBM a lot. Sure it's not jacking the prices up to extremely high levels, but the effect is still the same.
The courts also use monopoly/anti-trust law to block mergers of companies where the combined market share percentage is no where near the market share that Microsoft has. Whether it fits your definition or not, the courts still have ruled that MS abused monopoly power. As others have pointed out, what AOL is doing isn't any different than companies paying for premium space on store shelves. It's actually funny that MS is bitching about it.
It appears that your definition of art is whatever the "artist" thinks it is. By that reasoning, the guy who crapped his pants while waiting in line at the DMV, could claim it was an artistic performance. IMHO, this "art" is just a way to get attention by doing something as disgusting as possible and the people doing it probably belong in a mental institution.
I'm also sure there are many people that would like to use your individual/municipality logic applied to zoning, regulations, taxes, etc.
Actually, both examples you gave can be attributed to the Democrats. It was Gore's campaign that was distributing the cigarettes. (story from the station who caught them). With Motor Voter, it's not any harder to register to vote than it is to get a drivers license. Even before that, it wasn't that difficult. Heck, depending on your ethnic background, there are groups that will seek you out and help you become a registered voter. Given the little time that it requires, I am surprised that anyone finds it to be a hard process.
But if you used the onscreen menu bar, everything was logically arranged. IIRC, the WordPerfect function keys were designed such that the most used functions were assigned to the keys closest to the home row of the keyboard (pre PS/2 machines had the function keys in two vertical columns on the left side of the keyboard [and the control key in the correct location]..for those who are too young to have used them). However, once a person memorized the f-keys, you were very productive. I've seen many secretaries fly through documents never having to look at those little dots. Word slowed them down.
Word for Dos? Ick I remember that and I distincly remember it being a POS. They must have used a random number generator when they decided what functions would go under what menus or what the menus would be named. There was a reason why WP kicked it's ass all over the marketplace. It was a superior product.
I've been installing gnome by just compiling the source since about version 0.30. There is a compilation instruction web page at gnome.org that lists the packages that you must have and the order that they must be compiled.That's what I normally do on my main machine at home. Unfortunately, there are some packages that are in the unstable directories that are needed by packages in stable and these aren't listed on the compilation instructions. For my debian systems, I just use apt-get. I did have a PPC system that the installer couldn't recognize (IBM workstation), so I just installed all the RPMs from the command line, which wasn't difficult.
They aren't giving it to you. There is a clause in their terms of service that states that the gateway is theirs and they will charge you $500 if it's not returned when your service is terminated. Unfortunately, hardly anyone reads these agreements. If they did, this wouldn't be a shock.
Are Telocity/DirecTVDSL still using the same boxes for existing new customers? If so, they are probably going to send them out to new customers. I've gotten cable boxes that obviously weren't brand new, so what's the difference?
Besides, there is a clause in the service agreement stating that the box is their equipment and the user will be charged $500 if it is not returned. Again, not any different than what the cable companies do. Why are people getting so mad about this?
What if they expanded it beyond trying to catch cheats?.... Hey, CmdrTaco just walked through door 5 of the Luxor. According to the database, he likes blondes, so send employee 109872 over there to make sure that he stays drunk and distracted.
I don't have cable, so unless they stream it from their site or let PBS re-broadcast it, I won't be watching it any time soon. Come to think of it, I haven't watched TV in a few weeks.
Most casinos already have hundreds of video camera watching everyone. Just imagine what they could do if they used the same facial recognition software that the Tampa police have and tie it back into their gambler databases.
Maybe an opt out policy is in order? Or an opt in?
You don't have to have one of the players or gold cards to eat or gamble at the casinos. People get them because the more they use them, the more freebies the casinos give them.
I'm not sure what they are using now, but as of a few years ago, Harrah's customer database was in Informix running on NCR *nix. The also had a few AS/400s. I _think_ every property had one of the small AS/400s onsite. Which sometimes can be a problem if the property is a riverboat and it moves under a bridge, blocking the satellite uplink.
And part of the licensing agreement was that Spyglass would get a cut of every copy of IE sold instead of just a big upfront licensing fee. Unfortunately for them, MS decided to give it away instead of selling it. I remember reading someplace that the Spyglass CEO was at the IE announcement. I would have kicked Gates in the nuts afterword if I were him.
Tell me, how well does 4WD help when you're trying to stop your massive SUV?
It's not going to help at all. Anti-skid brakes, good tires, and even weight distribution will help much more than 4WD will. He will get better traction due to the vehicle's weight, but so do lots of big old land yaughts(sp). But due to the increased mass, they generally take longer to stop.
Dude, that's exactly the type of weather I learned to drive in (in one of your neighboring states). I also don't have a problem taking my wife and two kids on a trip in something the size of an Excel either. Either you're taking too much stuff or you don't know how to pack.
4WD doesn't help you that much on ice. As a kid I worked in a gas station and the owner always laughed when he had to take his old 2WD pickup to go pull the guys & their 4WDs out of the ditches because they thought 4WD would be so much better on ice. Of course the knotheads that would usually get stuck also had big fat knobby tires on their trucks too. Once in the ditch, the tires would ride up or push the snow in front of them and before they knew it, they were stuck because they got themselves high centered. Your points are still valid, but they are more excuses why these people don't need them and are even that more of a nuisance to the rest of the public. Being able to afford something doesn't automagically bless you with the knowledge of how to operate it.
We need a larger vehicle to just fit in all of our stuff when we travel (suitcases, stroller, backpack, diaperbag, diapers, food, toys, presents, etc.). Small children use a LOT of stuff.
Been there, done that with two little kids in a econobox. See the earlier post. Hmm, I wonder how my parents got by with seven kids and a Pontiac?
Hydroplaning is going to be a function of the weight of the vehicle and the width of the tires. At one time a company was producing a dual tire sort of rim for sports cars because a guy in Europe noticed that their tiny cars and their super skinny tires could go faster than he could in his sports car in heavy rain. That evolved into modern rain racing tires. My '59 Oldsmobile didn't hydroplane or slide very much on ice either, but that was due to it being a 4500+ pound car. Your big SUV is not going to be any different because of it's mass. Unfortunately, it has a higher center of gravity, so it's easier to tip, just like many pickups are.
Large parts of the US are sparsely inhabited by urban standards, with low maintainance roads being the rule....... Many of the people I know who drive pickups or SUVs live in cities and rural areas that can't afford to take care of their own streets
Again, you are describing where I grew up, learned to drive and where my parents still live. My dad still says that the best thing to come along has been front wheel drive cars. He makes his living driving around on those type of roads all year round in a CAR. He uses a pickup when he needs to haul a lot of stuff or pull a trailer. Many people have the same needs and that's why they use pickups also. If the weather was really bad, the farmers dug out their own roads. Yet another reason to have a tractor (I remember helping do it too). I'm not slamming people who actually have a need for such vehicles. The vast majority of the people that own them don't use them to even a fraction of their capability (sounds a lot like Word doesn't it? big, bloated, expensive, everyone thinks they need it, but barely use them). I read a couple years ago that the average household income for a new car buyer is something like $60K. The average Suburban-class SUV owner is something like $150K. Because they are popular with urban & suburban people with more money than brains, the car companies jack the prices up and make huge profits compared to their other autos. Of course, this pisses off the people you describe because they generally earn less (hence not being able to afford road maintenance) and it's harder for them to afford a vehicle that they might actually need. That is unless they con the banker to include it along with the $200K loan for a new combine. =) [Or are Hutterites...the cash some of those colonies pull in is amazing.].
A lot of this would not be an issue if they were included with all the other cars for the CAFE averages. The auto companies would quickly find a way to make them more efficient, sell them only in appropriate areas, etc. As it is, SUVs and vehicles like the PT Cruiser are classified as light trucks and are exempt from CAFE standards. Like pickups, they don't induce fines due to a low fleet fuel economy average and the car companies can sell them at a higher price to urbanites that don't fully use them.
I was also wrong about the CRV. I read CRV but thought CRX. IMHO, a CRV and other mini-SUVs are not much more than a little 4wd station wagon with aggressive styling. In fact, I think pretty much describes Subaru's SUV. While you are still probably wasting money compared to a equivalent car, it's not as bad as a normal SUV.
That is odd. I've always heard SUV owners complaining about how they were being overcharged for insurance. I can also assure you that I do have my eyes open and do see lots of people do stupid things while driving. However, in bad conditions, the SUV drivers seem to be the ones that stick out. Maybe the guys who drive like idiots in sports cars get married and move up to SUVs?
I don't have anything against SUVs if they actually fulfill a day to day need. A couple friends of mine from college have them or have had them in the past usually because their jobs required it. One worked in the data rigs in the oil fields in western North Dakota. The other has to carry a lot of test equipment to building sites which sometimes don't have good roads. When the guy in ND moved to Houston, he parked the Suburban and bought a jeep or a car because it was too expensive to drive to work and he didn't want to risk some idiot w/o insurance hitting such an expensive vehicle. I am certainly not an environmentalist, but I can't help thinking about how much money people are wasting commuting in those things. It would be different if they were car pooling, but 90% of the time, I only see one person, maybe two, in them. Also, you _know_ that the SUV market was to provide status symbols when Cadillac and Lincoln started selling them. No one is going to take their Caddy or Mercedes off road and people in Dallas, LA, Vegas, etc. don't have the excuse of needing it for bad weather. I guess I'm a tightwad more than anything and just hate to see people blatantly waste money.
Depending on where you live, how often does that really happen? In moderately deep snow, yes a 4WD vehicle is going to have an advantage. But not on ice. I've seen way too many SUVs and Jeeps whose drivers thought that spinning like tops and ending up in the ditch and/or hitting someone else. For all but the most extreme conditions, a front wheel drive car and an alert driver with a clue is sufficient. I've driven through enough blizzards to know that. My father spends a lot of time on the road (500-1000 miles a week before he retired..probably only 300 now) mainly in rural areas where 'on-road conditions often turn into off-road conditions'. Unless he needed to pull a trailer or haul a bunch of stuff with a pickup, he used a car and has said even he can't understand why anyone would need a SUV.
Look at the demographics of those who are buying SUVs. They are usually upper middle class & up people in urban and suburban areas (again not counting Hutterites =). These people are buying for status and for a perceived need that they _might_ use it for once or twice a year, if ever, instead of what they actually use it for on a day to day basis. Sure, having a 4WD may help you if you're in an area that gets socked with lots of snow. Get a Subaru or an AWD Audi if you don't think a FWD can hack it. But what's the excuse for those in the sunbelt states? I mean, if I bought vehicles on some rare need, I'd buy a Hummer with a.50 cal machine gun on the top so I could mow down rioters and drive over the pieces of shit.
If your CRV is only getting between 25 & 30, something is wrong with it. My parents' big ass Buick Park Avenue gets a consistent 28. My Mitsubishi econobox gets 35. You should be getting at least that if not more. I've hauled a lot of stuff in a similar Hyundai Excel (mattresses, a freezer, 10+ computers & monitors, dressers, a swingset, etc.) and even pulled a U-haul trailer cross country over the Rockies w/o any problems. Renting a small trailer from time to time isn't that big of a hassel.
Someone at CBS MarketWatch determined that in just gasoline and insurance, SUV owners pay on average $250 more a month compared to owning a similarly priced car. Of course they suggested buying a car and putting the $250 saved into retirement funds. I personally wouldn't put that much money into something that's going to depreciate so quickly.
I personally wouldn't call a vehicle that is more likely to rollover, takes longer to stop, and is less manuverable than the average car, safe. Sure, you might be ok if you hit something smaller, but what about another SUV? Their stiff frames are derived from pickups and aren't generally designed to crumple and absorb the energy of the impact. Instead, it goes to the other vehicle and to the occupants. Add to that the observed 'I am invincible' attitude that many SUV drivers have, and it's no wonder the insurance industry actuaries jack up your premiums. I have seen SUVs going down the interstate at 60mph in rainstorms with only about 3 feet between them. Heaven forbid that the guy in front ever had to slam on his brakes. While it's funny to see that a majority of the vehicles in the ditch are SUVs after an ice storm, it's not funny to see one spinning out of control in front of you.
Unless you are a Hutterite, it's nothing more than a status symbol.
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The IIfx is supported by linux but not by NetBSD.
I haven't bought a distro since SuSE 6.1 in 1999. Anything newer has been downloaded by myself or someone else in the local Linux users group. Until someone gave me a machine that had Win95 on it a couple months ago, I didn't have a Windows box for couple years [I was going to install linux on it, but decided it could be useful for playing w/ Samba]. So unless buying a game or two from Loki counts, the amount spent on linux and Windows is the same: zero.
I'd rather put the money into hardware.
Go read the Findings of Fact for the MS-DOJ case read the part about the licensing of Windows 95 to IBM. The OEMs that did whatever MS wanted got Win95 early and at a cheaper price than those who didn't cave in. IIRC, IBM didn't get Win95 until the night of the consumer launch. Which considering the amount of time it takes to test it on the hardware, write any necessary drivers, get the systems into the supply chain, etc. it hurt IBM a lot. Sure it's not jacking the prices up to extremely high levels, but the effect is still the same.
The courts also use monopoly/anti-trust law to block mergers of companies where the combined market share percentage is no where near the market share that Microsoft has. Whether it fits your definition or not, the courts still have ruled that MS abused monopoly power. As others have pointed out, what AOL is doing isn't any different than companies paying for premium space on store shelves. It's actually funny that MS is bitching about it.
It appears that your definition of art is whatever the "artist" thinks it is. By that reasoning, the guy who crapped his pants while waiting in line at the DMV, could claim it was an artistic performance. IMHO, this "art" is just a way to get attention by doing something as disgusting as possible and the people doing it probably belong in a mental institution.
I'm also sure there are many people that would like to use your individual/municipality logic applied to zoning, regulations, taxes, etc.
Actually, both examples you gave can be attributed to the Democrats. It was Gore's campaign that was distributing the cigarettes. (story from the station who caught them). With Motor Voter, it's not any harder to register to vote than it is to get a drivers license. Even before that, it wasn't that difficult. Heck, depending on your ethnic background, there are groups that will seek you out and help you become a registered voter. Given the little time that it requires, I am surprised that anyone finds it to be a hard process.
I guess I'll have to read how it interacts with the existing built-in schemes that some laptops have for suspsend to disk. Thanks.
But if you used the onscreen menu bar, everything was logically arranged. IIRC, the WordPerfect function keys were designed such that the most used functions were assigned to the keys closest to the home row of the keyboard (pre PS/2 machines had the function keys in two vertical columns on the left side of the keyboard [and the control key in the correct location]..for those who are too young to have used them). However, once a person memorized the f-keys, you were very productive. I've seen many secretaries fly through documents never having to look at those little dots. Word slowed them down.
Is the suspend to disk only for laptops or can it be used for any machine?
Word for Dos? Ick I remember that and I distincly remember it being a POS. They must have used a random number generator when they decided what functions would go under what menus or what the menus would be named. There was a reason why WP kicked it's ass all over the marketplace. It was a superior product.
I've been installing gnome by just compiling the source since about version 0.30. There is a compilation instruction web page at gnome.org that lists the packages that you must have and the order that they must be compiled.That's what I normally do on my main machine at home. Unfortunately, there are some packages that are in the unstable directories that are needed by packages in stable and these aren't listed on the compilation instructions. For my debian systems, I just use apt-get. I did have a PPC system that the installer couldn't recognize (IBM workstation), so I just installed all the RPMs from the command line, which wasn't difficult.
They aren't giving it to you. There is a clause in their terms of service that states that the gateway is theirs and they will charge you $500 if it's not returned when your service is terminated. Unfortunately, hardly anyone reads these agreements. If they did, this wouldn't be a shock.
Are Telocity/DirecTVDSL still using the same boxes for existing new customers? If so, they are probably going to send them out to new customers. I've gotten cable boxes that obviously weren't brand new, so what's the difference?
Besides, there is a clause in the service agreement stating that the box is their equipment and the user will be charged $500 if it is not returned. Again, not any different than what the cable companies do. Why are people getting so mad about this?
What if they expanded it beyond trying to catch cheats? .... Hey, CmdrTaco just walked through door 5 of the Luxor. According to the database, he likes blondes, so send employee 109872 over there to make sure that he stays drunk and distracted.
I don't have cable, so unless they stream it from their site or let PBS re-broadcast it, I won't be watching it any time soon. Come to think of it, I haven't watched TV in a few weeks.
Most casinos already have hundreds of video camera watching everyone. Just imagine what they could do if they used the same facial recognition software that the Tampa police have and tie it back into their gambler databases.
Maybe an opt out policy is in order? Or an opt in?
You don't have to have one of the players or gold cards to eat or gamble at the casinos. People get them because the more they use them, the more freebies the casinos give them.
I'm not sure what they are using now, but as of a few years ago, Harrah's customer database was in Informix running on NCR *nix. The also had a few AS/400s. I _think_ every property had one of the small AS/400s onsite. Which sometimes can be a problem if the property is a riverboat and it moves under a bridge, blocking the satellite uplink.
And part of the licensing agreement was that Spyglass would get a cut of every copy of IE sold instead of just a big upfront licensing fee. Unfortunately for them, MS decided to give it away instead of selling it. I remember reading someplace that the Spyglass CEO was at the IE announcement. I would have kicked Gates in the nuts afterword if I were him.
Tell me, how well does 4WD help when you're trying to stop your massive SUV?
It's not going to help at all. Anti-skid brakes, good tires, and even weight distribution will help much more than 4WD will. He will get better traction due to the vehicle's weight, but so do lots of big old land yaughts(sp). But due to the increased mass, they generally take longer to stop.
Dude, that's exactly the type of weather I learned to drive in (in one of your neighboring states). I also don't have a problem taking my wife and two kids on a trip in something the size of an Excel either. Either you're taking too much stuff or you don't know how to pack.
4WD doesn't help you that much on ice. As a kid I worked in a gas station and the owner always laughed when he had to take his old 2WD pickup to go pull the guys & their 4WDs out of the ditches because they thought 4WD would be so much better on ice. Of course the knotheads that would usually get stuck also had big fat knobby tires on their trucks too. Once in the ditch, the tires would ride up or push the snow in front of them and before they knew it, they were stuck because they got themselves high centered. Your points are still valid, but they are more excuses why these people don't need them and are even that more of a nuisance to the rest of the public. Being able to afford something doesn't automagically bless you with the knowledge of how to operate it.
We need a larger vehicle to just fit in all of our stuff when we travel (suitcases, stroller, backpack, diaperbag, diapers, food, toys, presents, etc.). Small children use a LOT of stuff.
Been there, done that with two little kids in a econobox. See the earlier post. Hmm, I wonder how my parents got by with seven kids and a Pontiac?
Hydroplaning is going to be a function of the weight of the vehicle and the width of the tires. At one time a company was producing a dual tire sort of rim for sports cars because a guy in Europe noticed that their tiny cars and their super skinny tires could go faster than he could in his sports car in heavy rain. That evolved into modern rain racing tires. My '59 Oldsmobile didn't hydroplane or slide very much on ice either, but that was due to it being a 4500+ pound car. Your big SUV is not going to be any different because of it's mass. Unfortunately, it has a higher center of gravity, so it's easier to tip, just like many pickups are.
Large parts of the US are sparsely inhabited by urban standards, with low maintainance roads being the rule. ...... Many of the people I know who drive pickups or SUVs live in cities and rural areas that can't afford to take care of their own streets
Again, you are describing where I grew up, learned to drive and where my parents still live. My dad still says that the best thing to come along has been front wheel drive cars. He makes his living driving around on those type of roads all year round in a CAR. He uses a pickup when he needs to haul a lot of stuff or pull a trailer. Many people have the same needs and that's why they use pickups also. If the weather was really bad, the farmers dug out their own roads. Yet another reason to have a tractor (I remember helping do it too). I'm not slamming people who actually have a need for such vehicles. The vast majority of the people that own them don't use them to even a fraction of their capability (sounds a lot like Word doesn't it? big, bloated, expensive, everyone thinks they need it, but barely use them). I read a couple years ago that the average household income for a new car buyer is something like $60K. The average Suburban-class SUV owner is something like $150K. Because they are popular with urban & suburban people with more money than brains, the car companies jack the prices up and make huge profits compared to their other autos. Of course, this pisses off the people you describe because they generally earn less (hence not being able to afford road maintenance) and it's harder for them to afford a vehicle that they might actually need. That is unless they con the banker to include it along with the $200K loan for a new combine. =) [Or are Hutterites...the cash some of those colonies pull in is amazing.].
A lot of this would not be an issue if they were included with all the other cars for the CAFE averages. The auto companies would quickly find a way to make them more efficient, sell them only in appropriate areas, etc. As it is, SUVs and vehicles like the PT Cruiser are classified as light trucks and are exempt from CAFE standards. Like pickups, they don't induce fines due to a low fleet fuel economy average and the car companies can sell them at a higher price to urbanites that don't fully use them.
I was also wrong about the CRV. I read CRV but thought CRX. IMHO, a CRV and other mini-SUVs are not much more than a little 4wd station wagon with aggressive styling. In fact, I think pretty much describes Subaru's SUV. While you are still probably wasting money compared to a equivalent car, it's not as bad as a normal SUV.
That is odd. I've always heard SUV owners complaining about how they were being overcharged for insurance. I can also assure you that I do have my eyes open and do see lots of people do stupid things while driving. However, in bad conditions, the SUV drivers seem to be the ones that stick out. Maybe the guys who drive like idiots in sports cars get married and move up to SUVs?
I don't have anything against SUVs if they actually fulfill a day to day need. A couple friends of mine from college have them or have had them in the past usually because their jobs required it. One worked in the data rigs in the oil fields in western North Dakota. The other has to carry a lot of test equipment to building sites which sometimes don't have good roads. When the guy in ND moved to Houston, he parked the Suburban and bought a jeep or a car because it was too expensive to drive to work and he didn't want to risk some idiot w/o insurance hitting such an expensive vehicle. I am certainly not an environmentalist, but I can't help thinking about how much money people are wasting commuting in those things. It would be different if they were car pooling, but 90% of the time, I only see one person, maybe two, in them. Also, you _know_ that the SUV market was to provide status symbols when Cadillac and Lincoln started selling them. No one is going to take their Caddy or Mercedes off road and people in Dallas, LA, Vegas, etc. don't have the excuse of needing it for bad weather. I guess I'm a tightwad more than anything and just hate to see people blatantly waste money.
Depending on where you live, how often does that really happen? In moderately deep snow, yes a 4WD vehicle is going to have an advantage. But not on ice. I've seen way too many SUVs and Jeeps whose drivers thought that spinning like tops and ending up in the ditch and/or hitting someone else. For all but the most extreme conditions, a front wheel drive car and an alert driver with a clue is sufficient. I've driven through enough blizzards to know that. My father spends a lot of time on the road (500-1000 miles a week before he retired..probably only 300 now) mainly in rural areas where 'on-road conditions often turn into off-road conditions'. Unless he needed to pull a trailer or haul a bunch of stuff with a pickup, he used a car and has said even he can't understand why anyone would need a SUV.
Look at the demographics of those who are buying SUVs. They are usually upper middle class & up people in urban and suburban areas (again not counting Hutterites =). These people are buying for status and for a perceived need that they _might_ use it for once or twice a year, if ever, instead of what they actually use it for on a day to day basis. Sure, having a 4WD may help you if you're in an area that gets socked with lots of snow. Get a Subaru or an AWD Audi if you don't think a FWD can hack it. But what's the excuse for those in the sunbelt states? I mean, if I bought vehicles on some rare need, I'd buy a Hummer with a .50 cal machine gun on the top so I could mow down rioters and drive over the pieces of shit.
If your CRV is only getting between 25 & 30, something is wrong with it. My parents' big ass Buick Park Avenue gets a consistent 28. My Mitsubishi econobox gets 35. You should be getting at least that if not more. I've hauled a lot of stuff in a similar Hyundai Excel (mattresses, a freezer, 10+ computers & monitors, dressers, a swingset, etc.) and even pulled a U-haul trailer cross country over the Rockies w/o any problems. Renting a small trailer from time to time isn't that big of a hassel.
Just a case of a lazy programmer not checking the results of getenv(). That shouldn't be too hard to fix.
Someone at CBS MarketWatch determined that in just gasoline and insurance, SUV owners pay on average $250 more a month compared to owning a similarly priced car. Of course they suggested buying a car and putting the $250 saved into retirement funds. I personally wouldn't put that much money into something that's going to depreciate so quickly.
I personally wouldn't call a vehicle that is more likely to rollover, takes longer to stop, and is less manuverable than the average car, safe. Sure, you might be ok if you hit something smaller, but what about another SUV? Their stiff frames are derived from pickups and aren't generally designed to crumple and absorb the energy of the impact. Instead, it goes to the other vehicle and to the occupants. Add to that the observed 'I am invincible' attitude that many SUV drivers have, and it's no wonder the insurance industry actuaries jack up your premiums. I have seen SUVs going down the interstate at 60mph in rainstorms with only about 3 feet between them. Heaven forbid that the guy in front ever had to slam on his brakes. While it's funny to see that a majority of the vehicles in the ditch are SUVs after an ice storm, it's not funny to see one spinning out of control in front of you.
Unless you are a Hutterite, it's nothing more than a status symbol.