H/T to Jon, my former virtual landlord.
December 15, 2009
October 2, 2009
The destruction of Saturn
Tim Cavanaugh looks at the GM division that once looked like the solution to so many of GM’s problems:
I would not recognize a Saturn if it ran me over, but the brand showed every sign of becoming competitive, with the above-mentioned loyal customers and policies on haggling and customer service that have (so I’m told, though I have seen first-hand evidence to the contrary) since become industry standards. Saturn was hamstrung by something not mentioned here: It was for girls.
Those “officials in charge of GM’s other brands” (and at the UAW, which never liked Saturn Corp.’s more flexible contract) were status-stunted males so disgusted by the idea of innovation that they consciously chose to starve something every normal retailer would give a limb for. Saturn customers didn’t just like the product but felt real fondness and familiarity toward the brand. And this wasn’t treated as an opportunity to exploit but a problem to be solved.
General Motors isn’t the only American company that can screw up a wet dream. It’s probably not even the screwup company that is getting the most taxpayer dollars to keep screwing up. But it’s the most toxic. What’s good for America is the total liquidation of General Motors and the firing of every person, labor and management, who works for the company.
The few folks I knew who bought early Saturn models seemed very happy with their vehicles, and remained that way . . . until Saturn became just another branch of General Motors. Then, for the most part, they appear to have moved on, but not to other GM vehicles.
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September 25, 2009
Honda decides it’s sick of being seen as a cool company
Honda has introduced something to help it shed that coolness factor that’s been bothering it for a while. I guess they figured that Segway shouldn’t be the only company whose name is mocked for innovation in personal mobility:
Gentlemen, start your incredibly lazy engines: Honda has a new answer for those of us too tired to get off our keisters. Meet the U3-X “personal mobility device,” a unicycle-like ride that makes heading into the kitchen for pie as easy as — well, pie.
Sure to excite mall cops everywhere, the Honda U3-X makes the Segway look like an outdated piece of junk that no one in their right mind would ride. (Actually, the Segway already looked like that. Disregard.) The device is a 2-foot tall infinity-symbol lookalike with two pull-out pads for your tuchas. Marketed as a mobility device that “co-exists in harmony with people” — yes, seriously — the U3-X lets you hop a squat and zip around a room simply by shifting your body weight.
August 15, 2009
July 14, 2009
Monticello: Jefferson’s machine for living
While I enjoyed my visit and tour of Monticello, back in 2006, I didn’t get the full story. Wired tries to rectify that problem:
Thomas Jefferson loved new technology and modding his surroundings to his lifestyle. From food to comfort to efficiency, he was always looking for ways to improve his living space with inventions and hacks. If he were alive today, we like to think he’d be reading Wired.
Jefferson thought of his house, Monticello, as a machine for living. As such, it contains many insights into how a DIY gear-nut of today might have fared in the 18th Century.
“I would argue we are trying to debunk the madman-genius, nutty-professor image of Thomas Jefferson,” said Monticello curator Elizabeth Chew. “He is someone who was trying to adapt the latest technology in every realm of existence: science, how the house functions, in the garden. He is trying to put into use new ideas.”
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005578.html.)
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