Choosing a Car over a Cell Phone
From Drew:
Hello Charles,
I read with intrigue the your article on the idea that
the car has been supplanted by the cell phone for a generation of young
people. After seeing so many other people respond, I thought I'd share my thoughts
too.
I've always been a car nut, but that has nothing to do with it
running in the family, so to speak. I played for hours with my Hot
Wheels as a wee one, have had an affinity for racing/driving computer
games video games, and was practically jumping with excitement when the
magic age of 16 arrived and I could acquire my license. I like to think
that the many hours I plugged into games like Midtown Madness gave me a
leg up on my peers.
I understand why people my age have grown tired of the car. It's a
lot of work - and a lot of expense - just to have four-wheeled freedom.
And depending on your environment, you may not need one. I live in
smaller city of about 70,000 that is quite spread out, and thus our bus
service is pretty paltry, especially for those working a part time job
as a student. Once I move to the "big city" this spring, as it were, I
may find I need my car less often. For me, however, it's always been
more about the social aspect of the car. No matter what the price of
fuel, I've always been the first to offer rides to people, go on road
trips, or just take some time to motor down a deserted two-lane. It's
the act of driving itself that fascinates me; the interaction of man
and machine to do something genuinely thrilling.
Now, I wouldn't suggest everyone go out and buy a new car, however,
or even that they make use of the various "scrap-it" programs. In my
eye, it's only more stimulus; it's not really environmentally motivated
at all. When you consider the amount of energy required to destroy an
old car and the amount of energy to create the new one, it will take
years and years before what comes out of the tailpipe of your older car
is ever offset by what comes out of your new one. And that's years and
years driving the same car, which most people don't see fit to do.
They'll buy a car, drive it a few years, and trade it. They're not in
this for the long haul, and that's the problem. Not everyone works this
way, of course, but you can see the problem inherent in encouraging
people to dispose of perfectly good cars.
I've actually gone the opposite direction; the few cars I have
owned, most of them were one foot in the ground, so to speak, when I
bought them. I then fixed them up slowly and as time and money
facilitated, drove them for awhile proud of what I had created, and
then sold them to someone else who was equally appreciative of the
value of the old beast. My newest vehicle, an '89 Volvo 240, is going
through this process currently. It now runs and drives excellent, gets
great mileage because it's a five-speed, and all of the quite important
bits on it work as they're supposed to. I'm still sorting out little
things like dashboard illumination and missing seat heaters, but in
time I'll get there. I'm not so sure I'll be selling this one anytime
soon though; this car has really enamored itself to me. I might have to
drive it into the ground myself.
So that's my take on cars, as it were.
So where do cellphones fit into this? Well, actually for me,
nowhere. I have an iPod touch (and I'd really like the new one with the
cameras, it's slick), but no cell phone. Because of the oppressive
nature of Canadian cell phone carriers, were I to want an iPhone, I
would pay somewhere between $85 to $110 a month for the features I'd
want on it. My car insurance is only $60, and I'd have to work hard to
break $60 a month in fuel. So there it is. With the exception of
repairs of course, I've chosen my car over a cell phone.
And I still have friends. Imagine that. :)
Drew
Hi Drew,
Thanks for the interesting comments. It's encouraging
to know that some of the younger generations still can be fascinated by
cars. My hotrodder daughter wishes there were more. Most (not all) of
her car freak friends are middle aged.
Hot Wheels came on the scene after I had graduated to
real cars, so for me it was the English Dinky, Corgi, and Matchbox
miniatures. My kids had Hot Wheels, though.
I agree with you about the questionableness of
incentive programs that resulted in a lot of really good cars being
scrapped. I guess it did help resuscitate the domestic auto industry,
but my philosophy, like yours, is to buy thoroughly depreciated iron
and then run it until the law of diminishing returns makes spending on
repairs nonsensical. I've always felt at least a bit environmentally
virtuous about this and puzzled as to why the "use it up; wear it out"
paradigm tends not to be extended to motor vehicles. However, I've
observed over the years that people tend to be irrational about cars,
whether they love, merely tolerate, or hate them.
I live in a part of the world (deep rural Nova Scotia)
where running a car is a non-optional necessity. The nearest public
transportation, car rentals, and even taxi service is 50 miles/80 km
away. However, when I lived in a big(ish) city, I tended to leave my
car parked for weeks and walk or use the bus system.
As a fellow Canadian, I also concur with you about
absurdly expensive cell service here in Canada. I'm about 35 miles from
the fringe of Rogers wireless coverage, and iPhones don't even work as
voice or text devices here, but even if they did, there is no way I
would pay Rogers' ridiculous service costs.
Charles
Charles.
I got all excited about cars and the like, and forgot to talk to you
about Macs, as it were. Thought you might like to know that I'm writing
you on an iBook
Clamshell, a 466 MHz Graphite SE model. Coupled with a 160 GB hard
drive that I bloodied my knuckles installing and a NewerTech 75 WHr
battery, I use this rig for university five days a week. It runs Office
2008 well enough, gets about 7 hours on a charge, and can still connect
to the school's 802.11x secured wireless, which to me was downright
astounding given that all I have is a first generation AirPort B
card.
Again, just thought you'd like to know. Take care.
Drew
Hi Drew,
The old clamshell iBook is definitely one of the best
Mac laptops ever made. It's interesting and perhaps objectively
significant that the clamshell is a contemporary of the Pismo PowerBook - two examples
of which are still serving me well.
Congratulations on successfully replacing the hard
drive in your iBook - not a job for the faint-hearted.
Seven hours of battery runtime, albeit with an
extended life battery, is still competitive performance. Personally, I
would much prefer an elderly PowerBook or iBook to a new PC netbook for
the sort of stuff I use mine for.
Charles
Beautiful Cars
From Lloyd, following up on Old
Iron:
Hello, Charles:
Starliner Coupe
You've made my day. Not only did you give me the pleasure of meeting
another Avanti admirer (a rarity for me), but your article just gave me
an "a-ha" moment. My late father, a Detroit native who worked at the
fabled Dodge Main plant in the '50s, told me several times that his
favorite car of all time was the
Starliner Coupe. (He never identified the manufacturer when he
mentioned the car, the most beautiful he'd ever seen; I grew up
thinking it was a Packard.) With my all-time favorite being the
Avanti, I now know that our
most-loved cars came from the genius of the same designer.
Starliner Coupe
Your article (Steve Jobs May Be
the Raymond Loewy of Computer Design, but That Doesn't Make Apple the
Studebaker of PC Makers) was a pleasure to read. I think you're
right, too, to say that a Jobs/Loewy comparison should be taken as a
compliment. A Renaissance man, indeed. Would that we had more of his
kind in Detroit. (I recall a book, If
Aristotle Ran General Motors, which touched on similar
themes. (After reading it, with its' emphasis on Truth, Beauty, etc.,
as guiding principles for action, I gave it to a friend in the Glass
House.)
The Avanti
Finally, I also recall reading something about software design from
a Talmudic perspective. The article (I must find it - I'm sure that I
saved a copy) stressed that Talmudic principles, such as the idea that
creation is beautiful and elegant and that the products of our minds
and our hands should be, too, to please the Creator, would translate
into applications that work, well, like Mac software generally
does.
The narrowness of an education that lacks a splash of the liberal
arts shows up in the blandness of much of our consumer culture. Would
that we had more Steve Jobs-type leaders, who might take a calligraphy
class and be inspired to create new fonts afterward, or Raymond Loewys
to turn what might otherwise be an "appliance" (what Bob Lutz called
the 2004-7 Chevy Malibu) into works of art on wheels.
Studebaker Sceptre
Regards,
-Lloyd
P.S. While he was no Loewy, Brooks Stevens had a flair for
innovation, too. I saw a picture of his "Studebaker Sceptre" concept
when I was in high school (1979) and have always thought that it
could've been a hit.
Hi Lloyd,
I don't have a whit of industrial design talent
myself, but I'm a longtime aficionado. I like the concept that design
when done well can be a form of proper stewardship of God-given
creative gifts.
Raymond Loewy and Brooks Stevens were sometime
collaborators, and like Loewy, Stevens was a neo-Renaissance man who
applied his considerable talents to designing many non-automotive
products as well.
There was a Packard version of the Starliner coupe
after Studebaker bought Packard in the mid-'50s and reduced the marque
to badge-engineered Studebaker clones. The Packard iteration of the
Loewy couple had a somewhat unsuccessful superficial restyling - along
with a honking big Packard V8 shoehorned in that ruined the car's
balance. Only about 650
Packard Starliners were built, making it extremely rare.
Incidentally, Brooks Stevens was responsible for
styling the last and best, after
Loewy's original 1953 original, version of the Starliner coupe -
the
early '60s Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk
Thanks for sending that Studebaker Sceptre pic. Hadn't
seen that before. I wish you could see that 2006 number of the Avanti Magazine that
reprinted my Loewy article. There is a feature on the 1967 Studes that
were not to be, alas, some quite fetching.
Lutz was right about that '04-'07 Chev Malibu, a
markedly uninspiring example of non-design that Canadian automotive
journalist Jeremy Cato once describes as looking like it had been
beaten with an ugly stick. I like the '08 and later Malibu.
Charles
Hello, Charles:
Thanks for the links - it's nice to close the loop on how I always
associated the Starliner Coupe with Packard. The
Packard Plant, BTW, was also a design masterpiece, as it was the
product of Albert Kahn and was among the first factories to admit large
amounts of air and light. Even in ruins, the 3,000,000 square foot
complex is impressive, like some relic of another civilization.
If I may share one final thought on the Avanti with you, I have a
story to relate. At a social gathering that featured a "quiz show" type
how-well-do-you-know-your-spouse contest, one of the questions was,
"What is your husband's favorite car?"
We weren't picked for that question, but my wife asked me afterward
if she would have been right, had she been asked, if she'd responded,
Buick LeSabre,
as I was on my third at the time. When I told her that it had been,
since I was a teenager in the '70s, a '62 Avanti, and back then I
wanted it with a metallic flake pearl exterior and a leopard-skin
interior, she stared at me and said, "That is so wrong."
Regards,
-Lloyd
Hi Lloyd,
Thanks for the interesting information on the
erstwhile Packard plant. Packard has a reputation as a forward-looking
company, but I guess they were undercapitalized after resuming
production post WW II. I think I recall they they built Rolls Royce
Merlin aero engines during the war.
Thanks also for bringing Albert Kahn to my attention.
I wasn't heretofore familiar with his architectural legacy, but he
certainly had tremendous impact on Michigan and even southern Ontario.
His Wikipedia
entry says a Packard Plant constructed in 1907 was the tenth
factory he designed for Packard, but the first concrete one.
Hmmm. I wonder how my wife would answer that "What is
your husband's favorite car?" question. I must ask her, although I have
trouble singling out one choice myself. The Buick LeSabre of the '60s
and early '70s was a nice enough ride. Some friends of mine had
LeSabres of roughly 1972 - '76 vintage that I have pleasurable memories
of driving. Nice big comfortable cars, but hardly a candidate for
anyone's all-time fave, I imagine.
I'm with you on the metalfalke pearl paint (make it
candy color as well for the full era-appropriate effect), but I'll pass
on the leopard-skin interior motif. ;-) I think my pick for
most desirable Avanti would be the 1964 Paxton supercharged R3, which
are exceedingly rare - only nine of them ever ordered before Stude
terminated Avanti production at South Bend and decamped to Hamilton,
Ontario.
Charles
Several Good Browsers for Tiger
From Rob:
Hi Charles,
Read your latest column with
interest, as I have to agree that the eventual lack of browser support
for PPC Macs is what will be the end of the line for most. One ray of
hope is the TenFourFox project which
should provide us with an up-to-date browser with most of the features
of Firefox 4. It certainly looks promising. Just for the record, I'm
using OS X 10.5 on a
1 GHz 12" PowerBook and have found Opera 10.6.3 to be reliable and responsive
with none of the beachball antics you describe. However, I usually use
Safari 5, as it uses slightly less memory and is equally
responsive.
Rob
Hi Rob,
Thanks for the comments.
The spinning beach ball (on text entry and certain
commands from the Edit Menu) issue with Opera 10.6.3 is OS X 10.4 specific problem.
According to Opera Software's Desktop Product Tester
Daniel Aleksandersen, since Opera 10.52, they've been using newer APIs
that do not function on pre-Leopard versions of OS X. They've put
some workarounds in place, but, as he puts it, "these are not optimal
for performance, causing issues like the slow typing on these
systems."
In a blog entry he
elaborates that starting with Opera 11, they are discontinuing support
for PowerPC architecture on Mac and Linux, noting that while this is
unfortunate, with third party vendor support dwindling away, Opera can
no longer keep developing the browser for this architecture, and after
ending support for PowerPC, they will be able to focus more on making
sure Opera meets the need of the modern web browser user.
I find the speed of Opera 10.6.3 on my old Pismo
PowerBooks compelling enough to keep me using it, but in OS X 10.4
one has to remember to type slowly and carefully in text fields and
navigate deliberately in order to avoid triggering the intervals of
spinning beach ball inactivity I mentioned.
Safari 5 also doesn't support OS X 10.4. On my Intel
Mac, I use Opera 11, the latest Mac build of Chrome 9, and either Firefox 4,
Safari 5, or lately OmniWeb 5.10, which has grown on me on both the
OS X 10.4 and Intel machines.
Charles
Using Firefox 3.6 on My Pismo
From Charles:
Hi Charles,
Just read your
article on your Pismo's bad RAM.
Anyway, I have just downloaded Firefox on both my Power Mac G4 and my
Pismo G4, and it is faster and more responsive than I would have
thought (and better than I previously experienced). I also run AdBlock
Plus.
The only negative is that when I went to the LA Times
website, a news video started playing - I always liked OmniWeb because
it kept that from happening. But with AdBlock, the NY Times
website is much less cluttered.
I know, Firefox won't release a version 4 for PPC, but hey, nothing
lasts forever (except these Pismos, it seems!).
Cheers!
- Charles
Hi Charles,
"Fast" and "responsive" are not qualities I've
associated with Firefox 3.x on my Pismo, so I'm guessing your Power Mac
has a substantially faster processor than my 550 MHz Motorola 7110s and
more than the 1 GB of RAM the Pismo is limited to.
Glad FireFox is working well for you, and you should
be able to even use version 4 on your Power Mac thanks to the TenFourFox project.
Charles
2010 MacBook Air
From Andrew:
Charles,
Sorry to hear about your Pismo troubles. I believe you are correct
about the Mac App Store changing everything. I was looking around on
the App Store and noticed that Apple has priced its own applications
far lower online than they do at normal retail, such as Aperture for
$80 compared to $200, and the right to install on five different Macs
with the App Store version. iPhoto 11 was $15, I believe, which is much
cheaper than buying an iLife DVD, especially since I don't use
GarageBand or iMovie.
If looking for a replacement and knowing your preference for silent
computing, I can heartily recommend the cheapest new Apple laptop, the
11" MacBook Air. Mine
has been an absolute delight, and the fan has yet to kick-in. Something
about the slow 1.4 GHz processor combined with integrated graphics and
all flash memory results in a very cool-running laptop. The bottom of
the case barely gets warm, even when really pushing it with HD video.
It also appears better built than my 15" MacBook Pro or any of the 13"
unibodies in my office. I think you will find it a new favorite.
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Yes indeed, there are distinct advantages to a Mac App
Store world, although I remain unenchanted with the "walled garden"
paradigm.
Thanks for the encouraging report on the new MacBook
Air, which squares with what I've deduced from reading many reviews and
reports. I anticipate that I'll eventually end up with an Air, perhaps
with my next system upgrade - penciled in for early 2012 or possibly
late this year. I think the late 2010 Airs are destined to be one of
the exceptionally great Mac laptops.
OTOH, I may go one more cycle with a 13" MacBook Pro
due partly to its continued FireWire support, but largely because 128
GB is not enough for my needs, and the 256 GB configuration on the 13"
Air being seriously expensive. However, the silence and cool-running of
the Air are strong enticement.
Charles
Girl Playing iPad Guitar at Auditions
Girl with iPad Guitar Rocks
Auditions from Alex
Shpil on Vimeo.
From Kas:
Hi Charles,
Have you seen this vid?
Girl is trying to impress the judges playing on an iPad guitar!
Hope you'll like it
-Kas
Hi Kas,
Yes, thanks, I checked out that video when it was
first posted several months ago. Actually, it's iPad-synthesized sitar
she's playing - an Indian instrument introduced to the West by the late
Beatle George Harrison (among others) back in the '60s, but not heard a
whole lot in recent decades.
Charles
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