Re: [Leica] Re: [MUGers] Turn off the options, and turn up the intimacy.

[Gary Elshaw <godard@hotmail.com>]

Hi Henry,

Did you like Stephenson's discussion on GUI's for cars? I was pretty amused.

My partner and I were kind of discussing some of this stuff this evening and
the one exception to this sort of thing I could think of was watches and the
1980's. (she's 28 and I'm 31--totally 70's and 80's kids). My very first
watch was a digital watch made by Casio in or around 1980. It had a
stopwatch, a button for the day and month, and another small button for a
backlight. The point I was trying to make is that watches are the one piece
of technology I can think of where features have actually been removed over
the years.  By 1982 some of my more affluent friends had full calculator
functions and some form of game on their watches.

Most of the consumer watches around now will give you the day and the time,
but very little else.

Cheers and all the best,
Gary

Henry wrote:

> Which reminds my of my car (BMW), which has nothing to
> do with Leica other than both German made. Anyway,
> under warranty, BMW had to replace the throttle
> housing (twice) with died while on the freeway. The
> result was instant lost of power. I later found out
> that these new generation of BMWs are all "throttle by
> wire" with no physical linkage between the throttle
> and pedal, but computerized with sensors in retarding
> or advance throttle based on the signal input. This
> throttle by wire is integrated into their steering
> control as well. In other words, when it senses any
> wheel breaking loose, the throttle will retard and
> brake as well to straighten the car. Basically, a
> dummy can drive it in ice/snow/wet without getting
> into trouble. Now that sounds great provided
> everything works, but when it went bad when cruising
> 70mph on the freeway is downright dangerous.
> Ironically, a safety feature is in itself detrimental.
> The latest and the greatest I heard is that BMW is
> coming out with ..... are you ready ?...."Brake by
> wire".
> Hmmm...hate to imagine if that thing goes haywire
> while you are going downhill.

"Look Simon, I made love to your mother about a half an hour ago
 and now I'm beginning to think that maybe it wasn't such a good idea."

                          -Henry,  from Hal Hartley's 'Henry Fool'
OO  
[_]<|    
/|\
Gary Elshaw
Film and Media Studies Tutor
Victoria University
New Zealand


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