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9th july 2005Hacker with bullhorn: 'Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!'
Prospective station wagon buyer: 'I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!' Bullhorn: 'You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!' Buyer: 'But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music.' Bullhorn: 'But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!' Buyer: 'Stay away from my house, you freak!' Bullhorn: 'But...' Buyer: 'Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?' - Neal Stephenson, In the Beginning was the Command Line This came to mind last week when my station wagon, which these days is updated for free while you sleep, was visited by a particularly crazed fix and refused to start in the morning. I had to rebuild it from the bolted chassis up, and when it was finished the wipers and the CD player and the seatbelts wouldn't work, and the bumper stickers had all peeled off, and then I had to start fixing them too. I'll go on finding coins down the back of the seats for months, I suspect.
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