Brokaw lies about poll results?

Interesting... MediaMatters links to reports that Tom Brokaw represented weeks-old poll numbers (taken just after the Republican convention) as "the most current" and said that the American people still feel that McCain is better suited to be Commander in Chief. It's one thing to be wrong... it's worse to be wrong about a poll supposedly conducted by your own organization. It's worse still to present this wrong information as factual and state that you're reporting this incorrect information that supports one candidate when in fact the polling data after the first presidential debate almost universally went to Obama "in fairness to everybody here."

Perhaps Brokaw had been too busy sucking up to the McCain campaign on behalf of NBC to bother reading the current poll data before hosting Meet the Press?

MoveOn.org and others (on the left, of course) are questioning his impartiality in the upcoming debate he's scheduled to moderate on 7 October.

Small-town mayor thinks Obama might be the Antichrist

You thought this was going to be about Sarah Palin, didn't you? Actually, if Palin thinks Obama is the Antichrist she'd want him to win, since she attends an "end times" church. This does, however, offer some perspective about how little judgment is required of small-town mayors. (Actually, Kwame Kilpatrick showed us that big-city mayors can be pretty dumb as well, but that's beside the point.)

Danny Funderburk, mayor of Fort Mill, NC, forwarded an email chain letter that contains false claims that the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian bible describes the Antichrist as a man of Muslim descent in his 40s. The email then builds on THAT lie with the suggestion that Obama is the Antichrist. Funderburk claims he was "trying to get documentation" on whether or not this was true, but he didn't put that in the subject header. The story doesn't say if the actual email he sent contained any indication that he was looking for such documentation, and no copy of the email is included in the article.

If there's any truth to his claim, this man needs to learn to Google before he makes an ass of himself. Cynic that I am, I believe he's just an idiot who believed the chain letter and forwarded it on to friends so he could share this important knowledge. People like Funderburk give sane, intelligent Southerners a very bad name.

Why can't McCain use a computer?

I'm very, VERY tired of hearing what is either cynical mock indignance or abject ignorance from people claiming that the reason McCain knows nothing about computers is that war injuries keep him from using one.

Now there's a new idiotic ad in which a vet claims that Obama is attacking John McCain because of McCain's physical disability resulting from his injuries sustained as a POW. I really think there should be SOME enforceable standard of truth in political advertising, since normal libel laws don't apply to most political statements.

If Stephen Hawking can use a computer, I'd think a relatively spry old bastard who's been a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee overseeing the telecommunications industry and the FCC can probably manage to do so without too much difficulty. I understand that McCain has difficulty raising his arms above his head, but I don't generally put my keyboard or mouse above my head to use them, so that point doesn't suggest that he'd have a physical problem with it.

Assuming that McCain has a dexterity problem with his fingers (I haven't seen this stated anywhere, I'm just covering the worst-case scenario) there are excellent voice-recognition programs available as shrink-wrapped consumer software such as NaturallySpeaking that offer extensive voice control of Windows computers. (Yes, Howard, there's a Macintosh product for the same purpose.) It's quite clear that McCain is capable of speaking, so if he has any desire to learn to use a computer he should be able to do so.

So much for manufactured controversy. Why does it seem too much to ask to have the campaigns and the media concentrate on issues of governance? There are certainly enough out there to keep the media involved, but I guess real issues less entertaining than what Palin is wearing today and whether or not Obama will invite Ahmadinejad for tea in the Rose Garden.

Semantics and posturing

So how different is it to say "My opponent is right when he says X" rather than "X is true..."?

Much ado has been made by The bobbleheads... er.. talking heads in the media about the fact that Obama said several times that McCain was right about one thing or another being an issue. No one points out that when Obama did this, he proceeded to suggest that McCain's plan for dealing with that issue was wrong, even though his identification of the issue itself was right.

Why is it that even the suggestion of agreement is seen as a weakness? Is there any way to truly have a government of the people without recognizing that there are disagreements among those people? McCain's campaign of course immediately released an ad showing Obama saying McCain is right, so that would seem to be a poor choice of words on Obama's part.

Perhaps next time it can be "It is true that X is a problem in our country. However, the Republicans have shown that their handling of X has been lacking yadda yadda yadda." I fail to see how one could honestly pretend that everything ones opponent says is wrong (McCain's doing it, but he abandoned honesty weeks ago... it's no longer surprising.)

I feel that this weird debate theater highlights some problems with our "Two Party" system... because the 2 parties aren't really sufficiently different for them to simply present the truth and let the people decide. If the parties must manufacture difference and highlight dissent, perhaps they're not really different enough in their policies and their governance.

I was right about small cars in the US!

I like to be right... ask anyone who knows me. I'm just sad that it only took $4/gallon to make me right.

I haven't written all that much in this blog, but I've written 3 entries on smaller cars. In December 2005 I wrote that I noticed more people buying small cars. Things were still so bad back then that I pointed out the Yaris and the PT Cruiser as "not too bad." I should have mentioned the excellent Mazda3, but I guess I thought of that more as a sporty car than an economical one (and truth be told, the 3 is not particularly economical for its size, though it's decent for the overall performance it offers.

In July 2006 I'm ashamed to say I said essentially the same thing... prattling mostly about the Yaris and the Prius. I wrote about it last in January 2007, lamenting how slowly the uptake of small cars was going even though there were a few interesting new cars like the Aura from Saturn.

It really did take an extended period of $4/gallon gasoline to either make people realize it wasn't necessary to have a 5500-lb SUV to get most people to work, or for them to finally max out enough credit credit cards for it to be hard to fill up the 30-gallon tank. Being a cynical bastard, I tend to think it's the latter. Ford and GM have still been slow to tap their excellent offering in other markets to fill in the dearth of smaller models in the US market, though they're at least talking about it, and GM brought the Opel/Vauxhall Astra over as the Saturn Astra.

The Saturn has met with slow acceptance in the market... it starts just under $16k and the more compelling XR starting around $17,500 and still offering a rather underwhelming 138 hp and 125 lb-ft of torque. The Civic DX offers 2 more hp, 3 extra lb-ft of torque and 2 mpg better fuel economy city AND highway, for $400 less. Who thought this was a good idea? You have to offer a car with SOME advantage... make it more powerful, or cheaper... GM can't pretend to offer Honda's reputation, even though they've improved vastly in recent years. GM will of course pretend that it's just because Americans don't like hatchbacks, and will ignore the fact that they haven't marketed the car, Saturn dealers largely refuse to deal on price and theh Civic is a better deal.

Maybe Ford will do better when they bring the Fiesta. Make it quicker than the competition, or make it cheaper, or make it more economical, or even a combination of those... the US brands have catching up to do.

Now a foreign policy expert, Sarah Palin suggests Kissinger is naive about Iran

So, Sarah Palin can't help but share her brilliance with us all... when she was being interviewed by Katie Couric, Palin attacked Barack Obama for saying that he would engage in diplomacy with Iran, stating that his world view is "beyond naive," that engaging in diplomacy with Iran would be "beyond bad judgment."

Palin had recently met with Henry Kissinger, and Couric pointed out that Kissinger supports direct diplomacy with Iran. When Couric asked "Are you saying that Henry Kissinger is naive?" Palin's response was that she "... never heard Henry Kissinger say 'Yeah I'll meet with these leaders without preconditions being met.' "

Just for good measure, Couric contacted Kissinger and confirmed that his position is indeed that he supports talks "without preconditions." The NY Times (among other sources) has a brief article on this.

Here we have yet another piece of evidence that not only is Sarah Palin blissfully ignorant of the state of the world, she either is incapable of understanding what experts like Kissinger (and Colin Powell, and James Baker) are saying on the topic or intentionally ignores it so that her necon world view isn't distorted by inconvenient reality. If she is the best choice McCain could make, he's not very good at making appropriate, important decisions.

Why is your house so BIG?

It's probably a dumb question... if you're thinking critically about it, you're probably not part of a family of 3 living in a 2800 square foot crackerbox and wishing you'd borrowed that extra $50k for the 3200 square footer so you'd feel superior to your neighbor. It's not really a new question, a few people have been asking it for years, but the mainstream is just now realizing that it might be good to ask more than "How much will you loan me?" when they're choosing a house, and it's driven more by the crumbling market than any realization that they haven't opened the door of that 'guest room' at the other end of the house in a month.

I've found lots of references to a report called "Housing Facts, Figures & Trends 2004" from the National Association of Homebuilders on many sites, but I could only find the actual report second-hand here. It's not on the list of publications the NAHB make available on their site that date all the way back to 1997. I can understand why the NAHB might prefer that people not think too much about this... if people realize they don't need a 3,000 square foot house, they might also realize that there are lots of 2,000 square foot houses already out there that they could buy.

Among the interesting tidbits in the report... in 1970, the average home size in the US was 1,500 square feet. By 2004, the average had ballooned 2,349 square feet. At the same time, average household size dropped from 3.14 in 1970 to 2.59 in 2000. (according to US census data.) What are we doing with all that extra space, besides paying to heat and cool it? Master bathrooms bigger than my bedroom, media rooms, formal living and dining rooms that get used once a year... it's crazy!

I think this all ties in with the sprawl of suburbia... if the houses that are already built closer in are those dinky 2000-square-footers they were building in 1990, well, we've gotta go out further... it's just a little more commute time, right? I wonder at the actual driving forces behind it... is it more the fashion and getting ahead of the Joneses? (But not Mother Jones, of course... they don't approve.) Perhaps instead it's the drive by homebuilders to continue to sell new houses, offering bigger, fancier, flashier McMansions in ever more gated and restricted communities so that people will think their existing home is too small in comparison to those of their acquaintances and coworkers.

I live currently in the 3rd house I've owned, and it's a Goldilocks situation... bigger than the first, smaller than the second; younger than the first, much older than the second. For the moment, it's "just right." The 2 of us plus 2 dogs live comfortably in a 1500 square foot house originally built in 1952 (it was built at about 1200 sq. ft, a previous owner added on a room and a 1/2 bath at the back.) I'm sure I wouldn't mind having a little bigger pantry or another cabinet or two, but we can both work in the kitchen and cook good food, and it helps us follow Alton Brown's "no single taskers" mantra. Even with 56-year-old windows, it doesn't cost me an insane amount to cool (and of course in Texas the cost to heat is generally negligible, I could spend the winter in a tent.)

My middle house was new... most of the houses close to my office were in new developments, so I gave it a try. At 1750 square feet, I built the smallest plan offered by the builder, and spent a little extra for some energy efficient upgrades. My house was nice enough, and different from the other houses because most of my neighbors built as much house as they could get financed; there was only one other house on my plan in the whole development. It was still a very "suburban wasteland" experience, with restrictive covenants controlling everything from the color you could paint your trim to how tall your grass could be, all dialed in by the developer and written into the deeds when the tract was subdivided. The results are very beige... if anything is too different, the "architectural" committee of the HOA (none of whom have any architectural experience, of course) will come to hassle you.

I have vowed never to be subject to an HOA again, and it's entirely possible that I'll never own a house over 2,000 square feet. I don't think a well-designed house NEEDS to be that big unless you have a big family. I hope to design our next house, though depending on where David does his residency it may be the house after next. Hopefully I'll remember my small-house prejudices when it comes time to do the design work.

What's a Chevrolet Volt?

Chevrolet introduced a concept car called the Volt at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show. If you're not a car geek, you may not be familiar with the fact that concept cars are often wildly impractical futurist visions of what a company might do if the laws of physics were repealed... you may have noticed that we still don't have the flying cars promised to us in the '50s, never mind the nuclear reactors in the trunk to power our cars for decades on a single refueling. The Volt Concept was racy-looking, impractically-packaged (for a mainstream consumer car) and described as a series hybrid, specifically GM's E-Flex Extended-Range Electric Vehicle (EREV) system.



If you take a moment to look at that picture, it becomes apparent that the design compromises outward visibility, and if you're seen video or stills of people near the concept, it's not packaged well to be comfortable for 4 people. Never mind the fact that the concept car has a golf-cart powertrain to let it move under its own power, it wouldn't be a practical everyday car even if it had the final production E-Flex powertrain.

Now, a couple of weeks ago GM started leaking pictures of what is to be a production version of the car. Last week that had an official reveal of the production look of the car. The fact that there is to be a production version at all speaks of the upheaval at SUV Central ...er... GM Headquarters over the state of the car market today. Americans have realized that it's not really necessary for one person driving to their white-collar job to drive a vehicle that weighs 6000 lb and has seating for 8, and they've abruptly stopped borrowing against their houses to buy one, so there are Tahoes and Suburbans languishing on dealer lots everywhere.

In a shocking break with recent tradition, GM is planning to offer to the public a vehicle that's more efficient than the current Toyota Prius. A vehicle that will let you drive about 40 miles per day without needing any gasoline at all, and if you need to drive farther than that before you have a chance to plug in and charge it for a few hours, the "extended range" part of the powertrain kicks in and the car will take you as far as you want as long as there are gas stations every 300 miles or so. This is a game-changing powertrain, even if it's not an atomic car. The car that will be produced, as usual, is very much toned down from the show car that has to look good on a turntable but doesn't have to be a good car to drive.



It won't be out for a while (GM is saying late 2010) and there's conflicting info about what it will cost, what tax incentives will be in place at the time, etc. Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman of GM, wanders around with random quotes rattling out of his head and generally contradicts official statements, engineers in interviews and whatever he said last month. He was on Colbert last week and didn't really help the car any, but his interview will be largely forgotten by the time the car's in dealer showrooms.



I am amazed at the number of people who are up in arms over the fact that the production model doesn't look just like the concept car. They stupidly throw out epithets not supported by facts like "Electric Malibu!" and "Hybrid Cavalier" and "bait and switch" and claim they don't want one because it doesn't look exactly like the concept that most of them have ONLY SEEN IN PICTURES. It's a different size and platform than the Malibu (it's slightly smaller than a new Malibu) and obviously has nothing to do with the Cavalier that has been out of production for years. It's larger than the concept and has much more passenger and cargo space, and has significantly less aerodynamic drag, but the mouth-breathing hordes are screaming that GM is cheating them by producing a practical car instead of giving them the show car they got all excited about.

I've posted many times in several threads on this topic that GM needs this car to be a success, and the Camry is a much bigger success than the Solstice, or even the Miata. Bland sells. In the case of the Camry, bland sells like free nickel beer. Once GM proves the technology and turns its finances around, it can be used in many other vehicles and they can produce shorter-range, less-efficient cars for the form-over-function types, but any fool can see that people buying family cars buy lots of 4-cylinder Camrys and Accords and Fusions and Malibus because they make sense, not because they make them horny.

I also included a "tinfoil hat" tag because there's a cadre of people following the Volt's development who claim that we should all be driving around in an EV1 and GM and the oil companies want us to be dependent on oil forever and the Volt isn't nearly as good as the EV1 and GM killed the electric car and on and ON. They can't see that this 4-seater car with decent cargo room, a production-ready chassis and essentially UNLIMITED range is better for most consumers (even with its more limited all-electric range) than a hand-built extremely lightweight 2-seater experiment that was never made available to drivers in harsh climates and required a long charging cycle with a non-standard inductive charging paddle when it reached the end of its range in 80 miles or so.

Should you buy a new mower now?

So, how long will that "perfectly good" lawn mower you've been thinking of replacing for the past 3 summers last you? I've been thinking about that more in the last month or so, because my 12-year-old lawn mower "has issues" but I'm a notorious cheapskate. My first power mower (the same one with "issues") was the cheapest rear-bagger I could find, back when the cheap mowers were under $100 on sale. In recent years, the weird little spring-loaded carburetor can't keep a consistent RPM, but it runs well enough to mow the lawn without stalling (it just sounds like a prop from a 3 Stooges film.) If I buy something new, I'd like it to have a Honda engine and keep it until I'm a grumpy old man paying the neighbor kids to mow the lawn, and you can't get a mower with a Honda engine for $100.

So now I'm torn between spending more than I want for a proven product now, or probably spending WAY more than I want for new tech in a few years. EPA regulations will require cleaner engines on walk-behind mowers in 2011 (the regs tighten for 25+ horsepower equipment in 2010.) So, what do I really need?

For Texas, I have a fairly small lot. I'm not into the big house thing, quality space and location means more to me than square footage. So, electric is an option. I'm not sure what I think of that... the overall technology isn't new (one of my crazy aunts had an electric mower in the early '70s) but some of the new ones are battery-powered. Green tendencies tell me this is a good idea... lower emissions (both total and of course in my neighborhood), quieter, theoretically fewer problems. I've read lots of poor reviews, and don't really know where to find "reliable" lawn equipment reviews. Cords that get in the way, batteries that wear out... but no gas required. The cheap electric string trimmer I bought 15 years ago still works fine, as does the electric blower I bought a year or two after that.

I could buy a new gasoline mower in the next couple of seasons. Now my inner cheapskate is arguing with my inner environmentalist... it would probably run cleaner than my old one but not as clean as one with a catalytic converter after 2011, but it would cost less and if the first few years of lawn equipment with catalytic converters suck as much as the first decade of cars that had them, waiting for a "clean" gas mower might not be a good option.

I have to wonder if I'm subconsciously not deciding because doing nothing is the cheapest option....

Disappearing wagons

I thought about titling my post "Why are Americans so damned stupid?" but only a few people who know me well would connect that to the topic, so I chose a bit more tame headline.

I want to know why it's so hard to find a good, affordable station wagon in the US. Note that I said affordable... the BMW 5-series wagon is available (for now!) so there's a non-SUV option from them, but the bloody thing STARTS at US$54,000 and it's probably the rarest BMW currently available in the US. There are 10 listings for 2003 or newer 5-series wagons within 300 miles of DFW, a whopping 3 of which are equipped with manual transmissions, and all 3 of those are brand new at BMW of Tulsa, OK.

Why does every mouth-breathing idiot want to drive an SUV to work, by himself, on a paved road in rush-hour traffic? I assure you the majority of SUV/CUV/SAV/SUT/whatever owners don't own a boat or anything else requiring a tow (except the SUV itself when it sucks down all its fuel, but that's another sort of tow...) I can transport as many people and about as much cargo in my Legacy Wagon as Joe Dirt in his Explorer and get there faster. Subaru has decided anyone who wants a wagon really wants an SUV, though, and has eliminated the Legacy Wagon in the US, selling only the Outback SU-wanna-V.

You can buy SUVs from nearly every manufacturer who officially sells cars in the US, and from nearly every marque from those manufacturers. Bentley doesn't have one yet, but parent VAG sells the Audi Q7 and VW Touareg. Rolls Royce is much to posh for that, but the X5 and X3 and the upcoming abomination X6 are from BMW, Rolls' corporate parent. If Ferrari, the last holdout (only because FIAT doesn't sell any of their other lines in the US these days) brings out an SUV I think I'll fly to Italy just to slap Luca di Montezemolo.

Many of these manufacturers sell interesting wagons in other markets, but here it's all trucks or sedans. Even GM and Ford have good wagons they could offer if their showrooms weren't choked with everything from Chevrolet Equinoxes to Lincoln Navigators. Hopefully by the time I am willing to part with my Legacy, Pontiac will be bringing the Holden VE Commodore Sportwagon as a companion to the Commodore sedan they'll be importing as the G8. Of course, by then I may not find a big V8 in a full-sized car a very appealing option... $3+ for Super is annoying enough.

So, if my Legacy got squished today, what would my options be?
Audi A3: the car that lost out to my Legacy when I compared them... almost a wagon
Audi A4: a bit pricey and heavy, but a nice car and still available with a manual transmission
VW Passat: soft, unattractive in this iteration, ends up pricey for VW reliability
Saab 93 Sportkombi: strong contender, even with the GM influence. The advent of AWD helps this one.
Saab 95 Sportkombi: odd-looking, BASE price over $38k.
BMW: both the 3 and the 5 are a bit pricey... the 3 just because key options are wrapped up in expensive packages so you end up around that magic $40k mark quickly. Never mind the idea of owning it after the bumper-to-bumper maintenance ends at 40k miles...
Volvo: stereotypical wagons, but the V50 is short on rear legroom and the V70 is expensive and slushbox-only.

So yeah, there are still wagons to be had (though you have to go looking for one to find it on the lot... the BMW dealer in San Antonio lost a sale to a colleague of mine who was willing to wait for a special order, because they weren't willing to order it!) I just wonder why Americans think gargantuan gas-guzzling SUVs are more desirable than a wagon that's lower, leaner and more fun to drive.

Change in direction (lack of direction?)

Okay, I think part of my problem has been a too-narrow definition of what I should write about. Yeah, I'm a gearhead and a geek. LOTS of people are writing about those two areas, though, and it feels depressingly "me too!" to just post a bunch of links to articles written by others and say "Cool."

So, before the 3 people who look at my blog take it off their RSS for eternal inactivity, I thought I might loosen up and do some random "What Really Grinds my Gears" stuff. Besides, I have a couple of weeks off work so I can pretend I'm in the habit of writing before I forget about it again when I go back to work in January.

Ooma dumma

I've been reading today about the "Ooma", a VoIP device that's supposedly revolutionary and will bring P2P advantages to VoIP. I think the most charitable impression I have is that they're not looking critically at their potential customer base.

I think I'd have to characterize myself in most instances as a "not late" adopter. Very-new tech is always more expensive and often less stable than I'd like. Hell, I haven't even bought a TV designed to hang on the wall yet (soon, and doubtless the subject of a boring blog post, but not yet.) Still, in my new old home I don't have a POTS line. I'm thinking of getting one for fax if the workarounds for that begin to annoy me, but I just have no real need for one more number for the telemarketers. I'm very happy with my "old school" VoIP service that's proven quite reliable and very feature-rich (VoicePulse if anyone's curious.)

For Ooma to work as advertised, a significant fraction of their "customers" will need to keep their landline. (I say "customers" because under the Ooma model, all the company's revenue is front-loaded in the overpriced Ooma Hub, there are no future payments to them unless they offer international calling at per-minute rates or somesuch service.) For it to be cost-effective for the "customers" in a market that is the destination for lots of calls, they might not even want the least-expensive phone service, which is "metered" and has either a maximum number of free calls per month, or a per-minute charge even for local calls.

It seems to me that lots of their customers are likely to be people who have no real desire to keep their landline. If someone's paranoid about their ability to reach 911 but too lazy to research or test a prospective VoIP provider's ability to provide 911 service, they may not want to rely on a black box (it seems to be gray from the pictures, but you get the idea) to route their call locally, and what does the thing do if you're one of those bad "customers" who doesn't maintain a POTS line to share with the Ooma community? What does it do with 911 calls then, complain to you that it wants to route via POTS but you don't have a landline plugged in?

I'll stick with regular VoIP and a mobile phone for now.

In-car surveillance

Okay, so this will probably get me branded as a member of the foil-hat crowd, but I'm getting concerned about the amount of surveillance we're under in our cars. I'm not quite to the point where I think it's Alberto Gonzales' idea (I'd be REALLY worried if that were the case!) It just seems like more and more little things are coming together to allow someone to forensically build a pretty good picture of what's been going on in your car.

Many cars today have a "black box" that records many different types of events. Since car manufacturers are still using older, stable technology, there's not a tremendous amount of storage in these boxes so they're not keeping a running account of your driving (yet), they're just recording major events. Basically any car with an airbag has some form of event data recorder, and it's likely that every new generation will be more capable and store data on more events and over a longer period of time.

Some readers are thinking "But I have nothing to hide, why should I care about this?" Well, let's take as an example a minor fender-bender. You are convinced that the other driver is completely at fault because he failed to yield when he pulled into the major road from a side road, and you're sure your insurance rate is safe. How happy will you be when his (or his insurance company's) lawyer subpoenas the data from your car's black box and shows that you contributed to the collision because you were driving 5 mph over the speed limit?

I think the best hope for keeping manufacturers from putting all sorts of collectible data that's not necessarily pertinent to maintenance and service will come from my least-favorite source, a lawsuit (or fear of a lawsuit.) If the manufacturer feels that collecting unnecessary data within every customer's is a potential liability, they'll think twice before collecting it "just because they can."

Still glacial progress in practical cars

I suppose there is only a certain sized market for reasonable cars, and people who are thinking practically about their ride are willing to buy boring. This is fine for the everyday transportation unit, but I think if the American car-buying public had some different options, it might not be considered punishment to buy a practical family car.

Don't get me wrong, there's some nice stuff out there these days. The Saturn Aura is actually a very appealing car, and for the not-quite-enthusiast it's a compelling product. I'm still not going to consider one, because there's no manual transmission. I'm one of those crusty anachronistic types who thinks everyone who's physically capable should be taught to drive a manual transmission vehicle. I'm not stupid, I realize that it's easier to learn to drive with a slushbox. After all, you really only have to point the car in the general direction you want to go and remember which pedal does what you want, and you have a 50/50 shot at that. People only rarely run down crowds of people or crash their cars through the walls of buildings because they pushed the wrong one, and it's NEVER their fault, right? I think that if more people actually had at least a vague clue about how the car works, they might be able to figure out that if you put the bloody thing in neutral it'll eventually stop, even if you have your idiot foot planted firmly on the accelerator. Wait, this is starting to sound like an earlier post, that's not what I set out to say.

Chevrolet has actually released pictures of a Malibu that aren't painful to look at. Ford's Fusion is not the prettiest car I've seen recently, but it's a damned sight more appealing than a Taurus, and is almost modern. The thing that mystifies me is the fact that the Aura method isn't used more often. Here we have international companies spending billions on design and engineering of different cars around the world. GM has brought over a SINGLE version of a SINGLE model, their Opel Vectra and Americanized it less viciously than usual to produce the Saturn Aura. It's a nice enough car, but they have available on that same platform hatchback and wagon versions, with efficient gasoline engines, clean, highly-efficient diesels and 6-speed manual transmissions. I recognize that there are certification issues with bringing engines over, but the return on that is the reduction in total number of different engines around the world, and the potential to offer a line of efficient cars in the US that someone would actually want to drive. I'd certainly consider a Saturn version of the Vectra Signum 4-door hatchback someday when it's time to replace my Legacy Wagon.

People in Europe voluntarily buy Fords, and not just because their daddy was a "Ford Man." None of the many Fords models people actually WANT over there are even available here. Their Focus isn't on a platform that's nearly old enough to vote, and their larger cars (equivalent to our midsizes) are unrelated to the Fusion and Five Hundred. Americans will buy any shiny thing you market effectively to them, you just have to deprogram them from the "Big SUV is better" brainwashing Detroit's been doing for the past decade. Gasoline that costs nearly as much as a latte at Starbucks is starting to wake some people up... when the bottom of the middle class have maxed out their cards filling up the Tahoe, they may look around and see that there's something modern, quiet and comfy that gets 3x the mileage without hauling around 500 lb of batteries or requiring occupants to pedal. The automakers need to be ready to fill that need, and someone should tell them that if you make a desirable product people will buy it without being expensively bribed.

Small cars are big business again

So there are some interesting small cars on the market again, and I even see a few of them on the road here in Pickup Land. I'm interested to see who'll win the race on this one, the $14k Yaris or the $24k Prius. It seems to me that the winner for affordable transportation should be the Yaris, and it's easy to park!

The sales of these cars in the last half of the year will be something to watch, since Toyota has sold enough hybrids to reach the point at which tax incentives on the cars start to taper off. Some people will of course say the cars are not competitive, since the Prius is high-tech, camry-sized on the inside, yadda yadda yadda. To a car geek, they're the same car. Slow, economical, weird-looking. Every time I put $40 worth of Super into the tank I wonder if I should have a commuterMobile, even if they do leave me a little cold. Of course, every time I put my foot in it I'm reminded of why I bought the Legacy GT Wagon, so the balance is in favor of 250 lb. ft. of torque so far. We'll see what gas costs next month.

Stupid people shouldn't buy cool toys

Ah, our wonderfully litigious society... it's so much more satisfying for people to sue rather than taking responsibility for their own mistakes. Now some mouth-breathing moron has filed suit against Apple because it's possible to turn up the iPod loud enough to damage your hearing. (see the Cnet news story here) Mind you, he's not claiming the iPod increases the volume on its own, or that listening to Mozart at low volumes will suddenly destroy your hearing just because you're using an iPod. He's claiming that if YOU turn up the volume all the way, the iPod gives you the ability to damage your own hearing.

Now, I've had stereo equipment you could do this kind of damage with for years. I've not been dumb enough to do it, or perhaps I've just not been devious enough to decide to sue Linn for making speakers that don't automatically shut off at some "danger level." Then I guess I could file another suit against musical talent who have the nerve to make music that sounds good at high volumes (and of course I'd name all the record companies in that suit just to add some deep pockets to the mix.) Then, hopefully, someone would SHOOT me for being a greedy, irresponsible sack of shit who's a burden to society.

There's a REASON for the concept of torts in the legal system... there are cases in which EvilBigCompany does something irresponsible or even malicious and deserves to get sued. There are cases when Danny Drunk runs over a pedestrian and deserves to get sued (though usually his insurance company ends up taking the brunt of that.) If I can't figure out that sticking a screwdriver into a live light socket is a bad idea (especially when instructions tell me "turn off the breaker" or "call a professional electrician") then I deserve a 120-volt shock, not a check for a million dollars.

Someone's going to say "We need tort reform!" Well, if tort reform were enacted by honest, responsible people with only the best interests of society in mind that would be great. Unfortunately, it would be enacted by trial lawyers and politicians, so my cynical semi-Libertarian side says that would probably end up being a bad thing. Can't we just have IQ tests for jurors?

More fun with VOIP

My attitude about my work has always been "If this were simple, they wouldn't pay me as much to do it." I'm not afraid of technology, but I'm in the technology BUSINESS, and understand that for the business to be successful, technology you're selling to consumers SHOULD be pretty straightforward, and the business needs to be well-run.

For the most part VOIP is pretty transparent to the user on the technology side, but these companies need to work on the business side. In the previous article you see that I was spitting and fuming about a company that didn't bother to hint to me they weren't selling anything until after I went through their entire sign-up process. I gave another company a try, Packet8. I set my mom up with this service 6 months ago, and if it works well for her you KNOW the technology part is transparent, she just wants to pick up the phone and dial.

My adapter is a different piece of hardware from my mom's, and my network setup is slightly different (but about 4x the throughput she has available.) I didn't expect to have any problems, but wasn't too happy about giving up some of the geeky features that appealed to me on other services. Still, the point was the telephone calls, right?

Well, the service that's been so reliable for my mom just isn't serving me well. I have a problem where the inbound audio drops and the line indicator on the VOIP adapter blinks like mad. Typical first-line tech support personnel blamed it all on the way I'd set the thing up, advised a number of changes that didn't really change anything. For example, they weren't satisfied that I had set my router's DHCP server to serve up a static IP to their device's MAC address, they wanted me to login to their device and set a static IP in it. Okay, sure, I'll do it to get past to you to 2nd-tier support... they were surprised I'd put it on the DMZ before they recommended it, and generally skeptical about there being any problem with their service at all. I ended up getting better service by posting a review of my experience on www.dslreports.com where a Packet8 supervisor stepped in. They shipped another adapter, things got much better and... the problem is still there, just not nearly as frequent.

In the interim I found another interesting company, SunRocket. One of their offerings is an annual service contract for $199, including a free 2-handset cordless phone. Decent features, decent monthly price, and it seemed from the reviews like if your service worked at first, it was going to be fine. I went for it (or perhaps "fell for it" would be more accurate. Fill out the order, get the stuff after a few days, everything works, this is great! 2 inbound numbers, each with its own voicemail, distinctive ring, call groups, etc. What's the catch? Fast forward a week, I find an email saying they've turned off my service! Turns out that just because they say the can provide E911 at the address I listed when I signed up, they can't, and it took them 10 days to figure that out. No warning, no negotiating, just turn it off and send the email. Their email didn't even indicate their intention to refund my money! Apparently they don't do that part until the next day... I called and complained and they assured me they were refunding my money. To their credit, they didn't even want me to return the hardware, they just refunded the money and left it at that.

Okay, so I guess I'll try to do the Packet8 thing... by now they're serious about resolving the issue. They had cross-shipped a new adapter and asked me if I'd help with troubleshooting by packet-sniffing the adapter's traffic while making calls and setting it up. Still, meager features and dropped calls don't make me feel great about their service.

Now, to close the circle, my neighbor talks to Voicepulse and they claim to be taking new orders. Here we go again... I placed the order last night, we'll see how THAT goes!

VOIP shenanigans (geeky but no gears)

Okay, I've decided to give VOIP service a try. My work is long distance from my house (in fact nearly any number I regularly call is long distance from my house) and let's face it, VOIP is appealingly geeky. I looked at the features and services offered by various providers and decided that one a neighbor uses has the best combination of features and value for me. The service is called Voicepulse, and they sure talk a good game.

They offer cool features like hunt groups, simultaneous ringing of multiple phones, etc. You can access your service via software on your notebook when away from home (for a small extra fee, but still it's a nice option.) My neighbor reports that their service has been reliable. It just seemed like a no-brainer.

Well, as it turns out, Voicepulse is the no-brain entity. I decided to give them a try, and went to their website to sign up. They make it clear via a page on their site and general descriptions of their service that they don't offer 911 emergency services, but I can deal with that since I have a cell phone and intend to keep my co-op land line with minimal services as a backup and to support the alarm system. So, I press on... filling out several pages of info on their site, putting in contact information, service address, credit card info, etc. I select an easily-memorized number from a list of available numbers in the rate center I chose (another tantalizing nice feature) and get to the final step in the process, clicking a box on a page informing me (yet again) that Voicepulse doesn't offer 911 services but will tell me about it when they do. One more button to click and... I get a message saying that Voicepulse won't sell me service because they don't offer 911 services at my service address.

What? Didn't they just make me confirm that I know they're not going to provide 911 services? Maybe I put something wrong in the address info that they can't figure out? Maybe I could choose another address that's in town so I know they could find it with mapping software? I try that... same results. It's starting to smell a bit fishy.

It turns out that Voicepulse isn't selling new service at all right now. Of course it's all the big bad FCC's fault (never mind the fact that many other VOIP providers are selling new service at the moment, and many of them are providing usable 911 service.) I'm sure the FCC is making it hard on these providers, since the old-line phone companies are pulling the strings, but a) other companies are currently selling new service (I proved this to myself, I ordered VOIP service from a known-good provider) and b) many of these other companies are providing 911 and E911 services.

I spoke to a Voicepulse representative who did confirm that they're not selling ANY new service at all, and don't know when they will be again. Of course, he said it would be "soon" and the delay was entirely because they were waiting for replies from the FCC. When I commented that it might be a good idea to announce that BEFORE potential customers spend 20 minutes filling out information on their site only to be told that they couldn't buy anything, he said that "had been discussed in meetings and it was decided to put the message where it is because that's where the 911 disclaimer already was in the ordering process." I suggested that he start looking at the help-wanted ads, because I didn't think an inbound phone sales rep was going to have a job very long at a company that isn't selling anything, and it couldn't be satisfying to answer calls from irritated potential customers all day.

So, I'm going to give Packet8 a try and see if they ever introduce their "coming soon" features that will make them ALMOST as good as Voicepulse WOULD be, if anyone could buy their service.

Car and Driver's "Everyday Heroes": How do they pick these things?

I'm torn... Car and Driver is my favorite automotive publication, and my Subaru Legacy GT is my favorite of all the cars I've ever owned, and was my favorite of all the cars I compared it with. In the February '06 issue, Car and Driver seems to have forgotten that the Legacy GT exists. It's like having your two best friends hate each other and trying to keep them both happy.

So Car and Driver's Tony Swan writes a comparison test article entitled "Everyday Heroes" in which they're supposed to be comparing cars for those automotive enthusiasts who, like me, can't afford to have a practical car AND a sports car, so we look for a good compromise. They seemed to have a pretty good program, requiring sporty sedans with manual transmissions and a base price under $30k. They included in the test the Acura TSX, Honda Accord EX V6, Mazdaspeed 6, Pontiac GTP and VW Jetta GLI. They explicitly stated that they couldn't get a suitably-equipped 325i or A4 under the $30k cap so they excluded those.

The Legacy GT Limited sedan lists with Edmunds at $29,420 including destination charge with a 5spd, and has more horsepower and torque than all of the cars in the comparison save the Mazda. It's AWD and quite sporty, and seems to lack none of the required elements in their comparison. As I wrote to them, perhaps it's like when they picked the defective 3-series as a comparison winner against a field of fully-functional cars last October, they simply reject our reality and substitute their own.

Note that I'm not bitching that the Legacy didn't WIN, I'm complaining that it wasn't included in the test. The win is a subjective thing in the final reckoning, even though they consider objective parameters as well (how else would a BMW with a defective braking system win?) Still, it seems strange to exclude a mainstream competitor that fits in quite well with the other cars tested.

2 Jan 2006
Ah, details... a careful re-reading of the article found a comment indicating that any car that had been in a similar comparison but wasn't the winner wouldn't be included. So, the underpowered TSX won last year's comparison and gets a chance to lose this year. I suppose they have to draw the line somewhere, but I could've told them to skip the G6, it wasn't going to win anything.

Small-car outlook improving in the US

I guess one good thing about 2005's increase in US gasoline prices is the increased interest in small cars. I've always liked smallish cars (small for the US, at least) but they've been largely ignored and vilified by American buyers. I know we're fat as a nation, but so am I (just look at my picture!) and I like fairly small cars. Most of the time I'm the only one in the car, after all... driving to work, the grocery store, etc. All things are relative, of course. My Subaru Legacy Wagon would be considered a fairly large car in Europe, but in central TX it's dwarfed by the Tahoes and H2s the 5'5" soccer moms are herding around.

Toyota's new Yaris is encouraging, as is the surprising popularity of the Scion xA and xB. The Kia Spectra5 seems to actually sell, I see quite a few of them around, and I'm guessing most of those are bought because people actually want one, if they're going for cheap the Spectra sedan is significantly less expensive. Even American companies are putting a little effort into it! Ford's Fusion isn't going to make me give up my turbo Subaru, but it's much more interesting than the Contour it (belatedly) replaces. Chevy's Cobalt is trying to be a car someone would buy voluntarily, as opposed to the ancient Cavalier people bought because it was cheap. Chrysler's PT Cruiser has strangely been a sales success, and I guess it's going to have to carry water for the Neon until they have a newer small car.

Yeah, I realize the cars I'm pointing out are all over the map... the Yaris is roughly xA sized and the Fusion is much bigger. They collectively represent a realization that Suburbans don't make efficient one-passenger commuter vehicles. The change will be slow, of course, because Americans will keep putting gas on their credit cards for a while and for many people it would cost more to dump the Expedition in the current SUV-unfriendly used market and buy something practical. Also, lots of people are stuck in lease-type arrangements in which they'd have to pay a big penalty to ditch their H2 before the end of the term, so as those deals come to a close I hope my view down the road will be less choked with lane-filling dark-tinted-window SUVs carrying one person and their cell phone.