Persnickity Prevaricating Elitists

Let's start today's post with one of my favorite comics http://xkcd.com/732/ :

I think  Randall Munroe is brilliant. One of the things he does that I've seen nowhere else is that he puts text in the graphic titles that pops up when you mouse over the comic, and you'll be missing a lot if you never see it. The subtext of this particular comic is: "We're also stuck with blurry, juddery, slow-panning 24fps movies forever because (thanks to 60fps home video) people associate high framerates with camcorders and cheap sitcoms, and thus think good framerates look 'fake'."

This brings to mind many situations in which I am annoyed by people who claim that they are the only ones perceptive and/or skilled enough to appreciate the nuances of various things. Such as morons who claim that some hunk of incredibly expensive audio equipment is "better" than another cheap unit when the actual measurements are either no better or sometimes actually not even as good. Or that a bitter, woody expensive wine is "better" than a cheap, sweet wine. Or that leather and wood in a car are better than fabric and plastic, even though plastic is much more durable and fabric is much more comfortable and both perform their functions better; wood and leather dry out and crack and require much more maintenance, and the aesthetics are debatable.

The truth is that such things are entirely subjective, and the reason there's so much variety in the world is because people are individuals and have different preferences, not because one thing is fundamentally and incontrovertibly "better" than another. One thing is not better than another simply because of price or any of the myriad of subjective values. It is simply different. The one and only criteria that makes one thing better than another is the quantifiable fact of whether it actually performs its primary function better. Frequently the cost is inversely proportional to the reliability, and that old saying "you get what you pay for" is usually not just wrong, it's exactly backward. I've seen far more luxury cars with serious dependability issues than econoboxes...

Getting back to the subject of the comic that inspired this post, one of the things that has always put me off of movies in the theatre was exactly that juddery, seizure-inducing effect of the slow frame rate, not to mention the grain that may be "artsy" according to some people but is simply distracting and annoying to me. I'll take smooth, grainless HD video over jerky, grainy film any day, thank you very much. (Not that HD video is perfect; there are compression artifacts and bogus, clunky and unreliable DRM to deal with.)

Bottom Line: Yours is not better than mine just because you say it is. And you are not better than me just because you wish it were so and make up artificial elitist criteria to support your claims.

The Real Dope: The overwhelming majority of life is purely subjective, and it is much more accurate and reasonable to say "I like this more than that because..." than to say "this is better than that because..."

Let's Crucify Toyota

Once again, the media is jumping on the Crucify Toyota bandwagon. This time, they have OMG shockingly discovered that a tall, heavy SUV (the Lexus GX 460) can actually be induced to oversteer and possibly roll over when driver stupidity/incompetence is engaged.

First, let's get one thing out of the way: I have never owned a Toyota, and it's been quite a few years since they've produced anything in which I would be even remotely interested. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a Toyota fanboy. However, the state of pseudoscience and deliberately biased "research" in the world today has me wondering where the human race is headed. It can't be any place good.

I have a friend who has always owned at least one Mercedes in the time I have known him. He currently owns two. One or two vehicles ago, he had an E500 that experienced the sudden unintended acceleration issue. It happened while he was running errands around town. He managed to get it home, even with the consistent problem, without crashing or so much as causing a scratch on either his vehicle or anything else. That's because he's not a complete incompetent moron. He certainly was scared, and after the car was repaired he sold it in short order, but that was that. Have you heard about that issue regarding Mercedes? I haven't. Gee, I guess that means it doesn't exist in anything other than Toyotas, and it's all the car's fault when something malfunctions and the driver is too incompetent to deal with it.

Back to the current issue: Do you really think that electronic stability controls are capable of saving your derriere in every possible situation? Do you think that trucks and SUVs handle just like cars? Do you often make stupid errors in judgment while driving? Then perhaps you deserve to roll your vehicle, and hopefully take yourself out of the gene pool!

Bottom Line: All SUVs and trucks are prone to handling issues and rollovers. Even if they passed Consumer Report's tests, those are under controlled conditions with professional drivers. In the real world, it's unlikely that any of the vehicles that passed their test would be much if any better if they were put into a similar situation with uncontrolled variables, such as other traffic and inconsistent surface conditions. If you disagree, it's because you are an incompetent driver who has never driven any vehicle at its limits, and should not.

The Real Dope: There's a very good reason why I have never subscribed to Consumer Reports. They are not nearly as unbiased, professional and scientific as they want you to believe. I have consulted them many times over the years, and every time I come away with a sense of incredulity that anyone would trust them to the extent that they apparently do. If you look carefully at the charts and tables and read the text critically, you'll see that their conclusions are often not supported by their own published data and more a result of subjective opinion than actual fact.

By the same token, the last bastion of mostly unbiased automotive journalism, Motor Trend, has fallen prey to the same egomaniacal and emotional (if not fiscal...) faults as the rest of the automotive magazines. Several years ago the old staff was phased out (retired? encouraged to retire?) and replaced by a younger and much less professional crew who have devised new tests with state-of-the-art gear that while sounding reasonable are actually proof that they don't really understand handling dynamics, much less what makes one vehicle worthwhile and another not. There are obvious agendas and propaganda. They constantly contradict themselves, and the motif running through the whole publication is: "the facts and numbers may lead you to believe that (insert incontrovertible test winner here) would win, but due to (insert list of totally subjective opinions here) we pick (insert 2nd to 5th place model here) as the winner." They've also changed their criteria, definitions and classifications regarding their vehicle Of The Year awards to the point that they are worthless. Meh, I wish my subscription would hurry up and run out. Unfortunately, due to their tactic of sending out renewal notices long before the subscription runs out (and relying on people not to know how to find their expiration date), I'm paid up for another 4 years, even though I can't remember when I last renewed. (That may have been exacerbated by gift subscriptions/renewals, I'm afraid.) I'm thinking about canceling, even if I don't get a refund.