September 9, 2001: GM vs Microsoft, Puzzle

Hi,

How was your weekend? I really liked potlucks when I was in Boston and in
LA. So, this past weekend I hosted a potluck here in Singapore. Over 20
people came. At first, I was worried that we wouldn't have enough food,
but then the people who came ended up bringing quite a large amount of
food. I cooked two of my usual dishes, spinach with garlic and eggs with
tomatoes. I think I need to learn some new dishes. We definitely didn't
have enough chairs.

After dinner, we played charades. It was guys versus the gals. Each sides
wrote down the names of 20 movie titles for the other team to guess. The
guys won handily, because as a group, we watch a lot of movies and just
about read each others' minds. It was quite fun. Too bad we didn't have
any of the other group games, such as Taboo or Pictionary.

This week's thought provoking question is: "If you could have survived any
historic disaster, which would you choose?"

This week's humor piece was forwarded by Phil Lin.

Enjoy!

-Josh.

Suzhou Garden 1
http://community.webshots.com/album/16728440DYhyBjTaqa
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GM vs Microsoft

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the
computer industry with the auto industry and stated:

"If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we
would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon." In
response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press
release stating: "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would
all be driving cars with the following characteristics:-

l. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a
new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would
have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the car windows,
shut it off, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue.
For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your
car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to
reinstall the engine.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought "CarNT",
but then you would have to buy more seats.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable,
five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would only run on five
percent of the roads.
7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be
replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same sized butt.
9. The airbag system would ask "are you SURE?" before deploying.
10. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and
refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle,
turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand
McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need nor
want them. Attempting to delete this option would
immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more.
Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Dept.
12. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to
drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same
manner as the old car.
13. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
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New Puzzle: Subway

My uncle Lou takes the subway to the movies or the theater every evening.
He always takes the first subway that stops at the station close to his
home, no matter which direction it is heading. If the subway is heading
north, he will go to the theater. If it is heading south, he will go to
the movies. Both trains run every 10 minutes. However, nine times out of
every ten, my uncle ends up at the movies. How can you explain this?
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Last Week's Puzzle Answer

My cousin Ernest was once kidnapped. He knew they would either take him to
New York City or to Sydney, Australia. When they took his blindfold off,
he could see he had been locked in a room without windows. There was only
a table, a bed, a chair, and a sink. However, Ernest was able to figure
out which city he was in. How did he do it?

Supposed Answer:

How does the water go down in the sink -- in southern hemisphere it's
opposite of northern hemisphere....

However, take a look at the this email from Richard Chung:

anyway, i'm just writing about the puzzle. i believe it's trying to get at
using the sink to determine whether you're in the northern or southern
hemisphere (coriolis effect), but if so, it's probably best to take a look
at these sites:

http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html
http://www.esm.psu.edu/htmls/graduate/remerson2.htm

or do a search on google.

So, the supposed answer may not work.