Not shocked; his words are, 'Well, you have some skill.', so it's pretty clear that stopping bullets isn't outside the realm of what is possible in the Matrix. However, it is probable that the Mirovingian did not expect Neo to be capable of doing so -- after all, why would he have his people use machine guns against a target essentially immune to their bullets?
Let me get this straight...I can spend $2600 on a tablet PC, so that when my professors change their minds I can change my notes, or I can spend four dollars to purchase ten legal pads and a magical pair of devices known to the ancients as a 'pencil' and an 'eraser'. Ones that will never break because they'll be shielded from wear-and-tear by $2596 in cash.
Your analogy is so false that even a Republican wouldn't believe it.
"Replacing the locks." would be a patch. You get to keep your house, not have to move (much) furniture out of the way of the locksmiths, etc.
"Moving into a new home." is a lot closer to what Microsoft is asking for. See, if you want to gain all the security benefits of those new locks, then you've got to move all of your furniture into a new house, which you get to build from the ground up. Not exactly a simple process.
I doubt that someone with a bachelors' degree in History will be asked about Visual Basic when he is interviewing for a teaching position. Likewise, I doubt that a producer is going to be asking film students about their ability to program in Java or write SQL queries.
Universities don't just revolve around computer science.
More importantly, it takes a competent programmer a few weeks to learn the basics of a new programming language; if a CS graduate decides that they need Visual Basic to get a job, it will take them a very small amount of time to learn it on their own. The purpose of a university degree isn't to get you a job; it is to give you the tools required to get you a job.
It's more than just the "$600 for WinXP". They've got to purchase licenses for Win2K (XP is a half-assed upgrade, W2K is at least a half-decent OS), plus hardware upgrades for every system, new servers, etc. And they'll have to train everyone on the new applications, and they'll have to port existing applications to the newer Windows architecture (backwards-compatible my ass).
So, they've got to buy more hardware, and do the almost the same amount of work as they would if they migrated to Linux. Sounds more expensive to me.
Not to mention that they could chuck some of the cash they save at IBM or Sun for some nice back-end application servers, so that the next time they "upgrade", it's a transparent process to the users.
You're missing the point -- this is an acid test of sorts. If something breaks one of the rules, then it's suspect. Two, and it's highly suspect. Three or more, and it's false.
Your argument for Galileo doesn't hold, because the original author worded the second point badly -- what I believe he meant to say is that "The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to supress his/or her work, but that there is no evidence to support this claim."
In the case of Galileo, the Catholic chuch said as much as "We're supressing your work because we don't agree with it.". Furthermore, Galileo's "violation" of rule #7 wasn't a violation at all -- his "new natural laws" fit the data better than the old ones. The problem with most "scientists" that attempt to propose new natural laws to explain a phenomenon is that their new laws contradict both establishled laws and valid data.
I so totally agree with that statement. Students don't need flashy laptops, or whiz-bang multimedia presentations. They need teachers (and parents!) who care, up-to-date textbooks, a reasonably clean environment, and the freedom to learn.
The laptops that Maine is providing are little more than another electronic babysitter. "Oooh, look, this is the picture of the sound a wolf makes!" sure sounds warm-and-fuzzy, but will that picture be useful to a student with no knowledge of lupine biology or the principles of sound? What good are pretty pictures based on science if the student doesn't understand science in the first place?
Computers don't belong in eduction until high school, and even then, they belong in computer labs. I'm not talking about the piss-poor "computer labs" currently offered to students -- I'm talking about real labs, with real teachers who can teach more than just the One True Way of opening an Excel spreadsheet.
Personally, I'd *voulenteer* to set up and administrate a Linux- and Unix-based lab for a local high school, including assisting them with getting the right hardware -- my current employer has two old SPARCserver 1000Es currently acting as general walkway hazards, and I've got two old RAID arrays in storage that can talk to to them, not to mention the piles of old networking cable, cards, and "useless" PCs that would be dandy X terminals. I'd even sit down with the librarians/teachers that manage the lab and show them how to do the mundane tasks.
All of this old crap together could easily work as a low-end setup to provide students with access to OpenOffice, a proxied internet connection[1], and a wealth of free scientific tools and toys only available for Linux. Not to mention access to compilers, webservers, and the like. The non-geeks will be able to use it quite well (OpenOffice and MS Office are almost workalikes at this level), and the geeks will have a chance to stretch their technological legs in a safe environment.
Any principal in the Roseville/Rocklin area (Sacramento) want to take me up on this one?
[1] This allows teachers to keep an eye on where students are browsing to, and LART students who spend all their time on Slashdot rather than working[2].
Re:Whats wrong with delivering pizza?
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Points for the irony (I never even thought of that!), but delivering pizza is an all-around shitty job.
I've never been a pizza-delivery driver, but I've had friends who were. Americans by-and-large tip horribly (non-assholes are rare, and yes, I'm one of them -- I tip well), and you get to pay for your own fuel, car repairs, and so on. You get yelled at for not bringing things the customer forgot to ask for, bitched at because the guy back at the oven got the toppings wrong, and complaints for not getting the pizza there fast enough, because you didn't feel that driving 80mph through residential neighborhoods was a good idea.
So, lousy pay, extra expenses, even more-pissed-off-than-usual customers -- I'll pass.
Damn straight! I'm in the same boat! Every time I think about not running that extra mile, or about not getting that bit of extra credit in a class, or not hitting on the hot chick reading T.S. Eliot at the cafe, I think about all the people that told me I would amount to nothing, could achieve nothing, and was worth nothing, and I prove them wrong.
I also ran into one of my former torturers awhile ago; he's got a kid and a stomach now (at 22), and works as a salesman, making less than half my salary -- and he was very unhappy. I didn't need to demean or insult him -- he did that himself.
Re:Somehow, I doubt I'll see this on the DrudgeRep
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Phillip Greenspun of arstechnica and photo.net fame. Sure, he's a computer nerd, but he's also a photography nerd -- that's about as far away from the keyboard as you can get. We're talking real photography here -- no computer-enhancement, USB-linked digital cameras. Medium format film, tubs of chemicals, racks of drying negatives.
I'm not a guru, but I'm also in the same category. Sure, I work as a Unix sysadmin and I program in my free time, but I'm also a photography nerd, cooking nerd, and physical activity nerd. I got picked on in high school, got over it, and I'm now having a lot more fun with my life than most of the "popular" crowd -- not because I make more money (I do), or because I'm better looking (I don't have a potbelly; most of them do), or because I've got more friends (Lost count and don't care). I'm happier because I've got tangible things that I enjoy devoting my life to -- my photography, my algorithms, and my tiramisu, whereas the "popular crowd" is still chasing "popularity" and "coolness" like they were in high school.
I agree; it's not really that sports are important, but that physical activity is important. Running, cycling, weightlifting, martial arts, hiking, even kicking around a beanbag...these aren't "sports" (unless you're competing with other people), but they are all hobbies that are common to many successful geeks.
I also agree that city (and suburban) life doesn't lend itself well to just "going outside and playing" -- we're so used to driving everywhere, and playing video games, that going out to run or play soccer is just...foreign. Might be why most Americans are obese...
Re:Alex should have just waited
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I think the fact that he is delivering pizza to you says more to him than a lousy tip ever could.
1. The support costs (from Dell) have to be accounted for; we're talking next-day on-site service, not the-RMA-might-be-back-in-a-week service. That's going to increase costs starkly.
2. They need durible, "Business Grade" machines -- not "home user" machines; and, yes, there is a difference.
3. Those $499 dells you mentioned have fuck-all for a warranty, completely pathetic memory specifications (256M is *not* enough for a Win2K workstation), and come with 17" CRT monitors with a shitty (.27) dot-pitch -- these will cause problems for many students in the ergonomics department. Flat-panels or high-quality CRTs are the only way to go, and neither is cheap.
Web Server. Windows, go to add/remove software, add IIS. Run the microsoft management console, and tweak it to your delight, if you get stuck the help file is right there, or burn a call on the credit card to MS support.
You forgot about the service pack update. And the hotfixes. Which, of course, stand a good chance of nuking your system if you're already running anything on it. God forbid your "web services" machine be running *anything* else, either, because you'll probably have to reconfigure it, too.
This isn't my experience; this is from watching several of my NT-admin friends at work -- these are, in my estimation, highly competent people. Most of them have been Microsoft junkies since the days of DOS and know the ins-and-outs pretty damn well.
Linux, go to apache.org, download the source, make install, go out and have a cig, come back and see if the compile is finished, go out to lunch, come back. Ok now you have to edit your rc.d scripts to run apache on start, do a little configuring in/usr/local/etc/apache, get stuck? Dig through millions of irrelevant howto's and newsgroups posts to find the answer. Live support? Go into IRC and get called n00b by every facist l33tist in there. Try a suggestion, and it breaks something else, rinse and repeat.
Ummm...try 'apt-get install apache-ssl php4 squirrelmail'. You now have a complete, SSL-enabled webserver, with a dummy certificate, PHP4 scripting, and a very nice webmail client.
Regular 'apt-get update; apt-get upgrades' will ensure that security patches and updates are kept current, with only a few seconds of interruption to your service -- not even a reboot.
It took me a good 4 years of tinkering with linux before I became proficient enough to run a server, compile my kernel (which is m00t these days because of modules) and basically make it do the same things my windows boxes do. Most of this time was spent wading through useless irrelevent documention, trial and error, ect.
I'll wager it took you more than four years of tinkering to get to the point where you could get your Windows boxen to do what you wanted them to; and I'm surprised that "four years of tinkering" didn't render you an expert. I've only been using Unix for a year longer than that, and not only does it pay my salary, but I can do *so many things* that were unthinkable on a Windows machine -- primarily because of all the free tools and documentation.
As far as desktop management is concerned, group policies, netlogon scripts, and active directory makes it easy enough for a child to manage a MS domain.
First, if by "manage" you mean "dole out user accounts and grant privileges", then yes, a child can do it. Actually keeping the system running, performing maintenance (both proactive and on-the-fly), and troubleshooting isn't anywhere near as easy as it is on Linux or Unix.
Second, Microsoft "management" only works with the latest Microsoft software. We've got a heterogenous network where I work, with Windows, Sun, and Debian Linux machines all working just fine off of the authentication system we "engineered" over the course of a week to tie everything together (via LDAP, Kerberos, and Samba).
If we had gone the Microsoft route, we would have been shelling out an insane amount of money, both to upgrade all of our desktop hardware (we're a small company, so most of the desktops are PII/500s with 128M of RAM running Windows 98), and to pay for the exorbitant licensing fees.
I'm not bagging on Windowss; I believe in "the right tool for the job", no matter what it happens to be. I just don't like inaccurate posts.;)
It's kinda like those "Last gas for 50 miles" signs you see outside the overpriced gas station in the middle of the desert. Here's your chance. Miss it, and there's no turning back.
They're hardly overpriced; they're responding to market demand -- it's a higher cost to get fuel and snack-mart goods out to the middle of nowhere, and there are fewer customers.
I'd like to see OpenBoot, or something like it myself. One of the biggest strengths of the Sun line of hardware is that I can do everything from power management, to hardware configuration, to installing an OS over a serial connction. Not that nifty when you're dealing with a workstation, but when you've got a rack of twenty servers, it's a lifesaver.
It's not that there's a problem with status per se, but that overzealous displays of status are...well, childish and asinine. A prime example of this is the need for some people to drive a massive SUV (like the Hummer H2) on suburban roads, when they could just as easily demonstrate their status (as well as superior taste, judgement, and respect for the safety of other motorists) by driving a Mercedes E55 AMG or a Porsche 911.
If someone buys a Hummer and uses it off-road, or to tow boats, or to move horse trailers, or basicially uses it the way it was intended -- as a heavy-duty vehicle, then there is nothing wrong with owning a Hummer.
The problem is the parade of soccer-moms and dickless wonders who seem to think that having this monster of a transportation device somehow makes them better human beings. The people that need to feel "safe" because they can crush a family of four in a Honda, rather than allowing both parties to survive a nasty accident.
Finally, most of the people that drive vehicles like these attempt to drive them like they are sportscars, and naturally have problems maintaining control of the vehicle. If I had a nickel for every time some SUV or minivan driver has narrowly avoided taking me out when I was out running or cycling...never seem to have a problem with the buzzing Hondas, though.
Maybe when you graduate from high school you'll realize that displaying your status by having a flashy car isn't everything.
(For the record, if drove the vehicle of my "income class", I'd be in a BMW; instead, I'm in an older Mazda, and rather enjoying a large bank account. Wouldn't own a car at all if my commute to work wasn't almost thirty miles.)
Slashdot Mirror
Not shocked; his words are, 'Well, you have some skill.', so it's pretty clear that stopping bullets isn't outside the realm of what is possible in the Matrix. However, it is probable that the Mirovingian did not expect Neo to be capable of doing so -- after all, why would he have his people use machine guns against a target essentially immune to their bullets?
Actually, I haven't read PA for some time -- but thanks for the link, as I forgot how funny those guys are. *grin*
Let me get this straight...I can spend $2600 on a tablet PC, so that when my professors change their minds I can change my notes, or I can spend four dollars to purchase ten legal pads and a magical pair of devices known to the ancients as a 'pencil' and an 'eraser'. Ones that will never break because they'll be shielded from wear-and-tear by $2596 in cash.
Your analogy is so false that even a Republican wouldn't believe it.
"Replacing the locks." would be a patch. You get to keep your house, not have to move (much) furniture out of the way of the locksmiths, etc.
"Moving into a new home." is a lot closer to what Microsoft is asking for. See, if you want to gain all the security benefits of those new locks, then you've got to move all of your furniture into a new house, which you get to build from the ground up. Not exactly a simple process.
I doubt that someone with a bachelors' degree in History will be asked about Visual Basic when he is interviewing for a teaching position. Likewise, I doubt that a producer is going to be asking film students about their ability to program in Java or write SQL queries.
Universities don't just revolve around computer science.
More importantly, it takes a competent programmer a few weeks to learn the basics of a new programming language; if a CS graduate decides that they need Visual Basic to get a job, it will take them a very small amount of time to learn it on their own. The purpose of a university degree isn't to get you a job; it is to give you the tools required to get you a job.
It's more than just the "$600 for WinXP". They've got to purchase licenses for Win2K (XP is a half-assed upgrade, W2K is at least a half-decent OS), plus hardware upgrades for every system, new servers, etc. And they'll have to train everyone on the new applications, and they'll have to port existing applications to the newer Windows architecture (backwards-compatible my ass).
So, they've got to buy more hardware, and do the almost the same amount of work as they would if they migrated to Linux. Sounds more expensive to me.
Not to mention that they could chuck some of the cash they save at IBM or Sun for some nice back-end application servers, so that the next time they "upgrade", it's a transparent process to the users.
You're missing the point -- this is an acid test of sorts. If something breaks one of the rules, then it's suspect. Two, and it's highly suspect. Three or more, and it's false.
Your argument for Galileo doesn't hold, because the original author worded the second point badly -- what I believe he meant to say is that "The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to supress his/or her work, but that there is no evidence to support this claim."
In the case of Galileo, the Catholic chuch said as much as "We're supressing your work because we don't agree with it.". Furthermore, Galileo's "violation" of rule #7 wasn't a violation at all -- his "new natural laws" fit the data better than the old ones. The problem with most "scientists" that attempt to propose new natural laws to explain a phenomenon is that their new laws contradict both establishled laws and valid data.
This isn't an anti-piracy move, though -- this is a move to cut down on the amount of Internet bandwidth for which the University has to pay.
I so totally agree with that statement. Students don't need flashy laptops, or whiz-bang multimedia presentations. They need teachers (and parents!) who care, up-to-date textbooks, a reasonably clean environment, and the freedom to learn.
The laptops that Maine is providing are little more than another electronic babysitter. "Oooh, look, this is the picture of the sound a wolf makes!" sure sounds warm-and-fuzzy, but will that picture be useful to a student with no knowledge of lupine biology or the principles of sound? What good are pretty pictures based on science if the student doesn't understand science in the first place?
Computers don't belong in eduction until high school, and even then, they belong in computer labs. I'm not talking about the piss-poor "computer labs" currently offered to students -- I'm talking about real labs, with real teachers who can teach more than just the One True Way of opening an Excel spreadsheet.
Personally, I'd *voulenteer* to set up and administrate a Linux- and Unix-based lab for a local high school, including assisting them with getting the right hardware -- my current employer has two old SPARCserver 1000Es currently acting as general walkway hazards, and I've got two old RAID arrays in storage that can talk to to them, not to mention the piles of old networking cable, cards, and "useless" PCs that would be dandy X terminals. I'd even sit down with the librarians/teachers that manage the lab and show them how to do the mundane tasks.
All of this old crap together could easily work as a low-end setup to provide students with access to OpenOffice, a proxied internet connection[1], and a wealth of free scientific tools and toys only available for Linux. Not to mention access to compilers, webservers, and the like. The non-geeks will be able to use it quite well (OpenOffice and MS Office are almost workalikes at this level), and the geeks will have a chance to stretch their technological legs in a safe environment.
Any principal in the Roseville/Rocklin area (Sacramento) want to take me up on this one?
[1] This allows teachers to keep an eye on where students are browsing to, and LART students who spend all their time on Slashdot rather than working[2].
[2] Come to thing of it, that's what I do. Doh!
Well said!
Points for the irony (I never even thought of that!), but delivering pizza is an all-around shitty job.
I've never been a pizza-delivery driver, but I've had friends who were. Americans by-and-large tip horribly (non-assholes are rare, and yes, I'm one of them -- I tip well), and you get to pay for your own fuel, car repairs, and so on. You get yelled at for not bringing things the customer forgot to ask for, bitched at because the guy back at the oven got the toppings wrong, and complaints for not getting the pizza there fast enough, because you didn't feel that driving 80mph through residential neighborhoods was a good idea.
So, lousy pay, extra expenses, even more-pissed-off-than-usual customers -- I'll pass.
Damn straight! I'm in the same boat! Every time I think about not running that extra mile, or about not getting that bit of extra credit in a class, or not hitting on the hot chick reading T.S. Eliot at the cafe, I think about all the people that told me I would amount to nothing, could achieve nothing, and was worth nothing, and I prove them wrong.
I also ran into one of my former torturers awhile ago; he's got a kid and a stomach now (at 22), and works as a salesman, making less than half my salary -- and he was very unhappy. I didn't need to demean or insult him -- he did that himself.
Phillip Greenspun of arstechnica and photo.net fame. Sure, he's a computer nerd, but he's also a photography nerd -- that's about as far away from the keyboard as you can get. We're talking real photography here -- no computer-enhancement, USB-linked digital cameras. Medium format film, tubs of chemicals, racks of drying negatives.
I'm not a guru, but I'm also in the same category. Sure, I work as a Unix sysadmin and I program in my free time, but I'm also a photography nerd, cooking nerd, and physical activity nerd. I got picked on in high school, got over it, and I'm now having a lot more fun with my life than most of the "popular" crowd -- not because I make more money (I do), or because I'm better looking (I don't have a potbelly; most of them do), or because I've got more friends (Lost count and don't care). I'm happier because I've got tangible things that I enjoy devoting my life to -- my photography, my algorithms, and my tiramisu, whereas the "popular crowd" is still chasing "popularity" and "coolness" like they were in high school.
I agree; it's not really that sports are important, but that physical activity is important. Running, cycling, weightlifting, martial arts, hiking, even kicking around a beanbag...these aren't "sports" (unless you're competing with other people), but they are all hobbies that are common to many successful geeks.
I also agree that city (and suburban) life doesn't lend itself well to just "going outside and playing" -- we're so used to driving everywhere, and playing video games, that going out to run or play soccer is just...foreign. Might be why most Americans are obese...
I think the fact that he is delivering pizza to you says more to him than a lousy tip ever could.
Keep a few things in mind:
1. The support costs (from Dell) have to be accounted for; we're talking next-day on-site service, not the-RMA-might-be-back-in-a-week service. That's going to increase costs starkly.
2. They need durible, "Business Grade" machines -- not "home user" machines; and, yes, there is a difference.
3. Those $499 dells you mentioned have fuck-all for a warranty, completely pathetic memory specifications (256M is *not* enough for a Win2K workstation), and come with 17" CRT monitors with a shitty (.27) dot-pitch -- these will cause problems for many students in the ergonomics department. Flat-panels or high-quality CRTs are the only way to go, and neither is cheap.
I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that your company doesn't run its own web servers or have anything providing services on the Internet.
What's wrong with being a sex-addicted pothead?
FUD ALERT! That's just plain malarky.
/usr/local/etc/apache, get stuck? Dig through millions of irrelevant howto's and newsgroups posts to find the answer. Live support? Go into IRC and get called n00b by every facist l33tist in there. Try a suggestion, and it breaks something else, rinse and repeat.
;)
So is your post.
Let's compare services...
Web Server.
Windows, go to add/remove software, add IIS. Run the microsoft management console, and tweak it to your delight, if you get stuck the help file is right there, or burn a call on the credit card to MS support.
You forgot about the service pack update. And the hotfixes. Which, of course, stand a good chance of nuking your system if you're already running anything on it. God forbid your "web services" machine be running *anything* else, either, because you'll probably have to reconfigure it, too.
This isn't my experience; this is from watching several of my NT-admin friends at work -- these are, in my estimation, highly competent people. Most of them have been Microsoft junkies since the days of DOS and know the ins-and-outs pretty damn well.
Linux, go to apache.org, download the source, make install, go out and have a cig, come back and see if the compile is finished, go out to lunch, come back. Ok now you have to edit your rc.d scripts to run apache on start, do a little configuring in
Ummm...try 'apt-get install apache-ssl php4 squirrelmail'. You now have a complete, SSL-enabled webserver, with a dummy certificate, PHP4 scripting, and a very nice webmail client.
Regular 'apt-get update; apt-get upgrades' will ensure that security patches and updates are kept current, with only a few seconds of interruption to your service -- not even a reboot.
It took me a good 4 years of tinkering with linux before I became proficient enough to run a server, compile my kernel (which is m00t these days because of modules) and basically make it do the same things my windows boxes do. Most of this time was spent wading through useless irrelevent documention, trial and error, ect.
I'll wager it took you more than four years of tinkering to get to the point where you could get your Windows boxen to do what you wanted them to; and I'm surprised that "four years of tinkering" didn't render you an expert. I've only been using Unix for a year longer than that, and not only does it pay my salary, but I can do *so many things* that were unthinkable on a Windows machine -- primarily because of all the free tools and documentation.
As far as desktop management is concerned, group policies, netlogon scripts, and active directory makes it easy enough for a child to manage a MS domain.
First, if by "manage" you mean "dole out user accounts and grant privileges", then yes, a child can do it. Actually keeping the system running, performing maintenance (both proactive and on-the-fly), and troubleshooting isn't anywhere near as easy as it is on Linux or Unix.
Second, Microsoft "management" only works with the latest Microsoft software. We've got a heterogenous network where I work, with Windows, Sun, and Debian Linux machines all working just fine off of the authentication system we "engineered" over the course of a week to tie everything together (via LDAP, Kerberos, and Samba).
If we had gone the Microsoft route, we would have been shelling out an insane amount of money, both to upgrade all of our desktop hardware (we're a small company, so most of the desktops are PII/500s with 128M of RAM running Windows 98), and to pay for the exorbitant licensing fees.
I'm not bagging on Windowss; I believe in "the right tool for the job", no matter what it happens to be. I just don't like inaccurate posts.
It's kinda like those "Last gas for 50 miles" signs you see outside the overpriced gas station in the middle of the desert. Here's your chance. Miss it, and there's no turning back.
They're hardly overpriced; they're responding to market demand -- it's a higher cost to get fuel and snack-mart goods out to the middle of nowhere, and there are fewer customers.
I'd like to see OpenBoot, or something like it myself. One of the biggest strengths of the Sun line of hardware is that I can do everything from power management, to hardware configuration, to installing an OS over a serial connction. Not that nifty when you're dealing with a workstation, but when you've got a rack of twenty servers, it's a lifesaver.
It's not that there's a problem with status per se, but that overzealous displays of status are...well, childish and asinine. A prime example of this is the need for some people to drive a massive SUV (like the Hummer H2) on suburban roads, when they could just as easily demonstrate their status (as well as superior taste, judgement, and respect for the safety of other motorists) by driving a Mercedes E55 AMG or a Porsche 911.
You could at least make a reference to Andy Singer, who drew the original cartoon which you parodied in your post.
If someone buys a Hummer and uses it off-road, or to tow boats, or to move horse trailers, or basicially uses it the way it was intended -- as a heavy-duty vehicle, then there is nothing wrong with owning a Hummer.
The problem is the parade of soccer-moms and dickless wonders who seem to think that having this monster of a transportation device somehow makes them better human beings. The people that need to feel "safe" because they can crush a family of four in a Honda, rather than allowing both parties to survive a nasty accident.
Finally, most of the people that drive vehicles like these attempt to drive them like they are sportscars, and naturally have problems maintaining control of the vehicle. If I had a nickel for every time some SUV or minivan driver has narrowly avoided taking me out when I was out running or cycling...never seem to have a problem with the buzzing Hondas, though.
Maybe when you graduate from high school you'll realize that displaying your status by having a flashy car isn't everything.
(For the record, if drove the vehicle of my "income class", I'd be in a BMW; instead, I'm in an older Mazda, and rather enjoying a large bank account. Wouldn't own a car at all if my commute to work wasn't almost thirty miles.)