hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0457.txt

Episode: 457
Title: HPR0457: automatic car
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0457/hpr0457.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 21:03:01

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Hello, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Tom Fallon.
Today's episode I'm going to tell you the story of my first trip to the States.
And bear with me, there's a reason for this.
I learned an awful lot.
The first thing I learned was that you should always travel with your own travel artillery,
with your own plane tickets, with the address of the hotel that you're going to be in.
Now, when you're in the States, just because it looks like a movie set doesn't necessarily mean it is.
A construction worker might actually be a construction worker and not an undercover FBI agent.
And I also learned that there's more the wrong way of driving a car, vis-à-vis I don't like automatics.
The first, I've been to the States a couple of times since then and I have adjusted to these things.
But the first time I arrived I landed in Kansas City and the person I was traveling with was stopping over in New York.
So I had two days in Kansas City to kill basically.
And we were going to be taken out in Kansas City by work colleagues.
So I didn't see there was a whole lot of point in me going down town myself.
So I took out the map after breakfast, which was early because I had jet lag.
And I looked on the map and I saw two things, one was Tulsa.
And you all know this song.
Money 24 hours from Tulsa.
And Oklahoma, one of my father's favorite musicals.
So I decided, well it's only that far on the map.
I should hire a car and go down that far.
And that was another thing I learned that day was that far on the map is relative.
Anyway, I picked up the phone contact reception.
I asked them if they could put me through to the local car hire place, which they did.
I asked the car hire dude, was there any problem?
Renting a car with an international driver's license.
He answered, do you have a major criticard, sir?
I said, vis-à, he said, I foresee no problems.
And indeed there was no problems.
When I got to the car hire place, he had, well it was really simply early in the morning.
And there was no one around.
So he also had upgraded me to some nice car, the real sporty type car.
No idea what the model was now.
Whenever it was parked, right outside the big bay window of the car hire place.
And so I did my thing, driver's license, bought a copy of everything, signed old forms, got all the insurance.
Everything was honky-dory and he gave me the keys and said, okay, there's cars right outside.
So sat in the car, put my Rucksack in on the seat and proceeded to turn it on.
Now I hadn't fallen for the old steering wheelers on the wrong side,
because I had driven left and right cars before around Europe.
So this, that wasn't anything new to me.
So I looked in and I saw the steering wheel, under the steering wheel that there was only two pedals.
It was either somebody stolen a pedal or this is an automatic.
So figured it was an automatic.
Had a look, PDN, okay, I can get all these things.
Park, drive, reverse, neutral, I guess.
The one, two, and three probably means, you know, first, second, and third gear if you want traction.
Okay, fair enough.
Sat down.
This could be too difficult.
Turn on the ignition.
Doing, doing, doing.
Which on a side note is incredibly annoying.
So, okay, I'd seen enough movies to know seat belt on.
Click.
Grant.
Turn on the car.
Nothing happens.
Okay.
I think it's supposed to be in P.
Okay, so put it in P. Try it again.
Nothing happens.
So I put it into N.
Perhaps you have to have it in neutral.
Okay.
Turn the key.
Nothing happens.
So try all the gears.
Nothing happens.
Begin to get a little bit flustered.
Because I've done this, took the key out.
Maybe there was a burglar alarm thing that I needed to turn on.
All these thoughts come through my head.
Meanwhile, time is passing.
More people are coming into the shop.
Are into the car hire place.
And they're right in front of me.
And sort of after a while, people are looking out.
And you can hear them.
It's gone.
You can see them gone.
Is that guy okay?
So I take out the map.
Put it over the windscreen so that nobody could see me.
And I got really lost my temper.
And during that, I put my foot on the brake.
And the car started.
So, the minor simple thing.
You have to have it in neutral or park.
I think.
And you have to foot on the brake.
Is the thing that starts the car.
Now, there are probably millions of people listening to this.
Who are...
There are millions of people in the States who know that.
They just know that.
I didn't.
Because I had not.
I was not accustomed to that.
Now, you might say there's not a major difference between driving a stick shift and driving
an automatic and there isn't.
So, why was I having so many problems with this?
You know, especially when I'm, you know, qualified engineer and relatively technical.
In, you know, since then, my brother has a hydraulic digger.
You know, one of these caterpillar things with the arm that goes up and a mechanical digger.
And I sat in that thing.
And I had no problem driving that thing.
I had no clue.
I had never experienced this before.
You know, there's joysticks and there's pedals on the ground.
And there's pedals, handle pedals that you have to have.
And I had less problem driving that than I had driving an automatic car.
And you would think that there was, you know, there was a bigger change.
And, of course, the reason for this is that when I was driving the digger,
I had no perception of what it was going to be like.
So, I asked my brother, okay, what do I need to do?
How do I make it go forward and backward?
How do, you know, revolve us left and right?
How do I make the shovel work?
So, I asked these questions.
And, you know, if we look at, if we take this user experience thing,
what people perceive from a desktop or from an interface,
and we take that to say Linux, for instance,
then, you know, that sort of goes a long way to explain why a lot of people
don't have problems with the Linux interface.
Take my wife, for instance, my, all my kids use Linux every day without problem.
My mother-in-law, her partner passed away,
and I switched her from Windows to Linux.
And, you know, that's been months I haven't, I haven't heard from her.
I see her, you know, her name come up on the instant message thing.
So, she's using it every day, we get emails, she checks her websites,
she does her tax online, and she's, she's just choosing Linux.
Okay, now, completely on technical user.
Why is this possible?
And the other hand, my wife has gone from using whatever desktop I happened to be in at the moment
or whatever distro, she's, she's used, she's probably used more distros and desktops
than Linus Torvalls has.
And yet, you know, if I ask her who Linus Torvalls is,
her answer is, he's that Linux dude.
And, from her point of view, I know this was discussed on the Linux link tech show,
but from her point of view, Linux is just, the computer is just a two.
She'll go, and she wants to know where her email is, and her, and the web is.
Now, I have since then switched to Debian, and of course, forgot that, you know,
it's now I stole the nice weasel, so I went off to work and I came back
and then I realized that I hadn't older.
And she, I said, oh, you're in your email and the web browser.
She's, yeah, I had a, I had a look around to see if I could get a gone.
I said, oh, you've already printed.
Yeah, I had a, I had a look around to see how I could get a gone and just come up by itself.
So that was fine.
And, you know, that to me means, yes, the desktop is absolutely 100% ready.
And, you know, this is for somebody who could care less, really could care less.
And, you know, to Bethlyn, I would say, yes, there are definitely people out there who could care less about Linux.
I'm, I'm of course happy that she is running Linux, but from her point of view,
she is into other things like handicapped kids, people with hearing disabilities,
the whole social thing.
And, yeah, I'm glad she is.
So, why then do we continue to hear from people that Linux isn't ready for the desktop and Linux is too complicated?
Now, I'd like to hazard, to hazard a guess at this one.
Taking my experience from driving that automatic car in the States,
I have the feeling that I brought to that the perceptions of how it should work.
And, I got frustrated when it didn't work exactly like I thought it should,
or it didn't act like I thought it should.
Which is why I think power users, windows power users are coming to
the Linux environment or the Unix environment have a lot more problems
because you're bringing all this baggage with you.
And, I say this because I have been a Windows admin,
and I know how tough it is.
So, if there's one thing that I'll say as the airplane goes overhead,
is be prepared to ask questions.
Don't be ashamed that you don't know everything.
So, is that all we can learn from this experience?
Ken's first trip to the States?
Well, no.
For one thing, the auto industry is a fantastic analogy for us to explain
some of the more complex, more difficult to grasp concepts
to new people.
For example, you can say that the kernel is like an engine in your car.
You've got a diesel engine, free BST for instance,
you've got a gas turbine engine,
it might be open to the RS and you've got a Linux engine,
turbo power jet engine or whatever.
The GNU tools are the auto manufacturer,
the mix of nuts and bolts, the brakes, all the boring bits
that help to assemble the car.
The distros themselves are just a brand name of the car.
So, for instance, it's essentially a car with a petrol engine.
So, a VW car is the same as an old car,
in that it's got an engine, a steering wheel,
but the indicators might be on the different side,
the brake pedal might look different, dash might look different,
seats might be a little bit different.
So, essentially it's the same concept,
but a distro is the car.
And just to finalize all of that,
wouldn't it be a very, very sad world that if now,
over 100 years after the automobile has been invented,
if we were all still driving a Model T.
With that, I leave you.
Thank you very much for listening,
and tune in tomorrow for another exciting,
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