[PotatoPancakes]

Is this the origin of the classic analogy that Windows is a station wagon, Mac OS is a European luxury sedan, and Linux is a free tank? I had no idea that the author Neal Stephenson came up with that.

The analogy is definitely a bit outdated now, what with Windows 8 then 10 then 11 getting aggressively less user-friendly each year.

[kragen]

Is Microsoft Windows more like a Ford Pinto with an exploding gas tank, a Lada, or what? I can't think of any car that's ever been sold whose design was optimized to spy on its users and trick them into buying to things and agreeing to contracts they didn't want.

The Takata airbags that inflated at random, killing 26 people, seem similarly harmful (if to a far smaller number of people), but that's an unintentional defect. Unlike the recent Windows 11 screw-tightening, Takata responded by recalling the product, not making it explode more frequently.

[advael]

From my experience riding in them and news reports I've read, any tesla fits the bill

Sadly, the most reliable signal american tech companies send is that they are primarily concerned with building a surveillance state. Whether this is for the US government or just their own fiefdoms (franchulates?) seems to vary a lot both within and between them, but neither prospect is particularly appealing to me as a prospective customer and/or target

[rusk]

> the most reliable signal american tech companies send is that they are primarily concerned with building a surveillance state

Sagacious point. With emphasising. This is how non-European web business look to everyone.

[cheschire]

Yep, Tesla was my first thought as well.

[JoshTriplett]

> I can't think of any car that's ever been sold whose design was optimized to spy on its users and trick them into buying to things and agreeing to contracts they didn't want.

I've ridden in people's cars that are still displaying "agree to the terms of service"; I think a number of cars are starting to become far too much like computers.

[drob518]

As a wise man once said, “Anything + computer = computer.”

[degamad]

Those terms of service used to be "you should keep your eyes on the road, we are not responsible if you have a crash while playing with your satnav/entertainment system" and "you're responsible for where you drive, so we are not responsible if the satnav tells you to drive off a cliff or into a closed road".

But now that we've trained users that they'll need to click accept on the screen, we can sneak any conditions we want in there about how we collect and use their data...

[mc32]

>like a Ford Pinto with an exploding gas tank"

This bit of libel needs to be put to bed. The Pinto did not have a greater propensity to explode than other "in-class" cars and arguably had a better safety record than Beetles or Corollas of the time. Nader made himself a nice career of this libel, but it does not make it true. Of course, other cars didn't have a "memo" but that's beside the point.

[kragen]

There is unsurprisingly an extensive account at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Fuel_system_fires,_...

[mc32]

"These works reviewed misunderstandings related to the actual number of fire-related deaths related to the fuel system design, "wild and unsupported claims asserted in Pinto Madness and elsewhere",[65] the facts of the related legal cases, Grimshaw vs Ford Motor Company and State of Indiana vs Ford Motor Company, the applicable safety standards at the time of design, and the nature of the NHTSA investigations and subsequent vehicle recalls.[66] One described the Grimshaw case as "mythical" due to several significant factual misconceptions and their effect on the public's understanding."

[fsckboy]

that Pinto Madness led to exaggerated claims does not mean that the Pinto was either safe or as safe as other cars, just that a car with an unsafe record had a worse reputation. The Pinto had a problem with its gas tank when it was rear ended. If you think other cars also had problems, feel free to name them. But that doesn't make the Pinto safe when it was rear ended, and it wasn't safe because the gas tank was in the rear and vulnerable.

[Aloha]

Various cars did (any of the vehicles with the gas tank mounted above the rear axle), some also had issues with side impact (GM square body trucks).

The 'crime' of the pinto was not that it was an unsafe car (it wasn't), it was that it could have been safer with a minimal (even by my standards, and I'm on the record as being opposed to mandatory backup cameras) increase in cost - that was why it grew the reputation, it was pure cost engineering (aka, cheapness - on the same level as the ignition switch failure issue GM had in the 2000's).

People died, a fair number of them - because Ford didn't want to spend an additional amount of money - less than 50USD in today's money - on a car that retailed for 15,000USD in todays money.

[ur-whale]

> I can't think of any car that's ever been sold whose design was optimized to spy on its users and trick them into buying to things and agreeing to contracts they didn't want.

Just give it a couple of years.

[rusk]

Windows Vista had suicide doors

[irishcoffee]

Apple is a shitty 3-series BMW, windows is a used Lexus that’s been in 3 accidents, and Linux is a 25 year old f250 that’s been a farm truck its whole life.

[nullbyte808]

I'd say Apple is a 50's CHEVROLET CORVETTE. Breaks down less than Windows and has less intrusive technology (like ads, AI, ect.)

[autoexec]

At least historically Apple would also have to run slower, while still costing much more than Windows. If a part gave you trouble you'd be forced to buy parts from the dealership and they'd sometimes tell you that you needed a new car when the same part on Windows could be repaired or replaced cheaply by any repair shop. You'd only be able to drive the Apple car on a handful of toll roads, although they were well paved while windows cars could be driven all over the place for free, even off-road if necessary, although that often resulted in flat tires making a triple A membership necessary and leading to a common misconception that apple was immune to flats.

[irishcoffee]

10 years ago I’d have agreed. Today it’s a shitty 3-series.

[lodovic]

I think the hate for Microsoft is more based on its popularity rather than Apple being "better". Both have dubious business practices. Ads in the start menu? Apple constantly pushes iCloud and related subscriptions. Market abuse? Apple is well known to remake and then block competing apps from competitors. Stability? Everyone knows the spinning beachball of death but acts like it never happens. User unfriendly? Apple constanly modifies its hardware to hurt independent repair outlets.

I don't have that rosy 50's Chevy picture, it's more like a luxury coupe with a tighly locked hood. Sleek, desirable, you pay through the nose for every upgrade, and don't attempt to fix it yourself.

[askvictor]

> Linux is a 25 year old f250 that’s been a farm truck its whole life

... that someone occassionally decides to wrap with a shiny covering to make it look like a luxury SUV. The covering sometimes peels off when travelling on the highway.

[anthk]

More like you press a button and self-shifts a la Transformer into an F16 or even an interdimensional shifting UFO visiting *BSD cousins.

Roads? In my daily computing I don't use roads. I just shift between portals (IRC/Bitlbee, Gopher, Gemini, AWK/TCL/Lisp, SLRN+mbsync+msmtp...)

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Depends very much on the choice of the endless combinations something linux-based enables.

I didn't have it crap on me ever, since about two years, by choice of a so called 'rolling' gamer distro.

Looks very nice and comfy to me with KDE Plasma, and its Breeze (light) style, which is "automagically" applied to apps written for other toolkits/DEs like GTK/Gnome. Everything of what I do(mostly just browsing, some LibreOffice, remoting into other systems) is running ultrasmooth without lag, or stuttering, while almost always some music plays via YT in the background, without resorting to solutions which would pipe that via yt-dlp into mpv. It isn't necessary for me. On obsolete systems with Kaby Lake Core i5/7t :-) The only thing which could be called special or unusual about them, is that they have 32GB RAM. That may help, too. Oh, and the BIOS/UEFI/Firmware, from Lenovo.

Just don't buy crap.

[irishcoffee]

Not people who like their work trucks.

[chrisnet]

no dogshit trucks near you?

[IAmBroom]

They meant they don't wrap them to make them pretty.

That's a city-driver, never-gonna-see-mud truck owner thing.

[irishcoffee]

I own one. :)

[samdoesnothing]

As someone who's owned an f250, I never once had to look up arcane commands to type in a terminal to get it started.

[cbm-vic-20]

When I was a kid, to start my dad's truck, you had to pull the ckoke, pump the gas a couple of times, start the engine, then slowly push the choke back in. That's a more obscure procedure than driving a car with a manual transmission these days.

[samdoesnothing]

Unlike Linux, that wasn't built in as a feature!

[bacchusracine]

Don’t forget about the BeOS being the Batmobile!