Source Jockey

Last night, I had a little time on my hands, and I stopped by the local Ford dealer to check out a couple of their new cars.  I had heard that Ford has upped the quality of their cars, and I wanted hard evidence that an American car company was about to produce something comparable to the Germans or Japanese.  I was a little disappointed, perhaps due to my high expectations, but they’re obviously going in the right direction.

The 2010 Ford Taurus SHO and Lincoln MKS are essentially the same car; the main differences coming from their styling, and driver space.  And the prices; the Ford stickers for $42,000; the Lincoln for $52,000.  I drove both.

The fact that I’m 6′8″ does not bode well for most cars, and these two were no exception.  I had to recline the seat back in both cars more than I would have liked, though not so far that it was terribly uncomfortable.  The Lincoln had more legroom, whereas the Ford’s center console got in the way of my knee.  Unfortunately for the Ford, that would be a deal breaker; over the 10 minute test drive, my knee hurt from the contact.  The interior styling of the Lincoln was more luxurious than that of the Ford, however the features were virtually identical–in fact, with the exception of the Park Assist, they WERE identical.  The interior styling was better than I would have thought to find in either a Ford or Lincoln, and the quality of the components was high.  The center screen was very nice, and the graphics were crisp, modern, and desirable.  I was surprised that neither the Ford nor Lincoln had a pretty LCD display in the main instrument cluster, and instead had a cheapie LED matrix…  I would expect to see that in a $10,000 car, not a $40,000 or $50,000 car.

Now for the handling…  I was not surprised to find that both cars are a bit fluffy when it comes to handling, as I have a very strong bias against American cars.  The steering felt disconnected, which makes only a little sense due to the speed-sensitive steering; braking was a little squishy and confidence reducing, and cornering was imprecise at best:  While both cars are all-wheel-drive, they seemed to lack the proper suspension to handle and high-speed cornering (yes, I threw the Lincoln into a corner, one that I was confident it would handle well, and yet the roll of the car almost threw the salesman into my lap).  The automatic transmission shifts only slightly better than my grandmother on a stick, and I was rather surprised at how rough and sudden each shift was.  Despite these negative attributes, there’s one saving grace in both of these cars:  The engine.

Both models have the EcoBoost engine.  A twin-turbo, 3.5 liter V6, the EcoBoost engine produces 355 horsepower (that’s NOT a typo).  And due to the rather low first gear, the car can really get off the line.  While on the freeway, both cars took off like rockets–which really surprised me.  Obviously, Ford has spent some time on this engine, and it shows.  I can totally see both these cars being ticket bait, and it was exhilarating to experience.

If I had to buy a new car today, I would give consideration to either the Lincoln or Ford, however I would be stopped by the lack of headroom and legroom (unique to me) and the tank-like performance of both cars.  If Ford spends a little more time working on the performance issues, as well as the interior space, I would absolutely nab one.  The interior quality is approaching that of the Japanese, and doesn’t have a long way to go before it bests the Germans (my standard is an Audi, and I personally think it has the best automotive interior for a car under $60,000).  The EcoBoost engine is a dream come true, and I hope that Ford continues to push that through their vehicle line.

I drove a Ford, and I’m happy to see that the Americans have a fighting chance.

So a Turing Test is a method of determining whether or not something/someone is human.  Really, the goal is to figure out if the test taker can “think”.  If the testee passes the Turing test, then he/she/it is deemed human, as computers, at least as far as I know, cannot “think”.  Captchas are a form of Turing test.

Lately, a spambot has gotten ahold of my Yahoo name.  Whenever I log on, I get a few messages from people I don’t know.  Because I am on a few websites, about 10% of those messages are legitimate–but the other 90% are not.  Initially, it took me about 2 minutes to figure out who was real and who wasn’t, as the spambots are programmed to respond to a user’s input.  For instance, if you ask “Who are you?” the spambot will respond something like, “I’m Michelle. What’s your name?”, then use that input later on in the conversation.  The problem is, after a couple minutes, “Michelle” will send a link to her webcam, and immediately, I know I’ve been fooled by a spambot.

So I decided to do a little experiment.  Rather than respond immediately to the new messages with something that makes sense, I instead ask a question, like “What’s four plus five?” or “What is three times 8?”  If I get a valid response, I can be more confident the message is from a real human–and if the response is more of, “Tell me about yourself”, I know that it’s a spambot.

It’s been a long time since I made a podcast! This one is a bit of a nerd alert… All about iPhone apps and their development with Nick Tam.

Update 2009-09-29: Had to take it down!  Sorry!

I just read on Slashdot that Microsoft has no plans to kill IE6.  Lovely.  As much as that irritates me, I understand…  The release Internet Explorer 6 practically coincided with that of Windows XP, the operating system most people seem to be using nowadays.  Microsoft has pledged support for Windows XP for a while, and as a result, MUST provide support for IE6.  What has to change, then, is Microsoft’s support for XP, and therefore IE6.  If they drop support for both packages, we can move on with life.

I guess my MAIN question to Microsoft is this:  While IE 7/8 is not a mandatory update, why can they not at least move it to a high-priority update?  More importantly, why can these corporate clients, hellbent on sticking with IE6, more open to transitioning to newer software?

I hope these IT people adopt Windows 7 with the same fervor as Mountain Dew and Pizza…

If I had my way, Internet Explorer (IE) wouldn’t exist at all in ANY version.  I’d just stick with Safari and Firefox.  But alas, Microsoft bundles IE with all their operating systems, and of course it’s what most people use.  Well, if you’re one of those IE 6 users, please do the world a favor:  upgrade.  Do it yourself, get your IT Department or 6 year old to help you do it.  The fact of the matter is that IE is blatantly not standards compliant.  It often takes hours to get a web site to look correct in IE6 while other browsers show them just fine.  Designers and coders must trick IE6 into doing things just to get a layout to work properly.

Enough is enough.

IE 8 is now the most recent version of IE, and while it’s not perfect, it’s a million times better than IE6.  I mean, come on, it’s a FREE upgrade–just do it already!!!  I’m at the point now where I will actually charge my clients more for a site in which they require IE 6 compatibility.  It’s ridiculous.  The browser has been out since 2002 or something ridiculous like that–it’s time to get over it!!

Yeah, this should probably be a Tweet, but I’m talkin’ about it anyway.  On my way into work, I was stuck behind a guy driving a little Mazda Tribute (looks like a Ford Escape) with a giant two-foot-wide “4×4″ sticker on it.  I did not take this picture, but I will use the one below to explain why this guy is full of shit:

I’ve circled the area where this car’s rear differential is.  You know, the differential that powers the rear wheels.  Oh, there’s no differential there, you say?  Yes.  That’s right.  There’s no differential.  Meaning no power to the rear wheels.  Meaning this thing is actually not 4×4.

So. Yeah.  People who put stupid stickers on their cars amuse me greatly.  Dumbasses.

So you might be curious as to what “pruning” is…  For those of you in horticulture, you know pruning is when you trim the deadish stuff from plants/trees/whatever to help it grow more.  Well, email is similar.  I went through my email and deleted/archived all the email I don’t actively need so I have a more manageable inbox.

Yeah, it may not sound like much, but going from 700+ emails to 18 isn’t TOO bad–and it definitely relaxed me.  Sure, I may have moved something I might need, but if it’s THAT important, the person/people will email me back.  Hopefully, it wasn’t you!

My mother just forwarded an email telling me not to open emails with the word “Hallmark” in the title.  Apparently, the email will come to my house, pick the lock, steal my computer and fill it with nasty pictures of donkeys having sex with camels doggie-style.  Or something like that.

I wrote an email to her (and all the people she copied) responding to her email, and explaining that, if you’ve got all your security updates, and you don’t open strange attachments, you’ll be ok.  She actually uses Yahoo mail, and therefore doesn’t need to worry so much about security updates as much as she needs to worry about opening weird attachments; even then, she doesn’t have administrative access to her computer anyway.  So she can’t REALLY do that much harm to her computer as it is.  She keeps asking me to give her admin privileges so she can upload photos to Costco or something…  Each time I consider it, I remember that she clicks “yes” to everything.

If you’ve gotten this far, and you consider yourself computer illiterate, here’s the ONLY rule you need to know about email-based viruses:  If you get an email from ANYONE, whether you know them or not, don’t open any attachments unless you have been expecting them.

Examples:

1. Uncle Jim sends you a Powerpoint of slides from his vacation–but Uncle Jim’s been dead since 1992:  DON’T OPEN IT.
2. Your buddy sends you a program to get a free Coca-Cola drink holder: DON’T OPEN IT.
3. Your favorite bank sends you their special, all-new banking software: DON’T OPEN IT.
4. You get a greeting card from someone for no good reason: DON’T OPEN IT.
5. You see an attachment that looks interesting: DON’T OPEN IT.

This is all pretty self-explanatory, right?