... Require you to turbo-charge your car in order to fit it and then stop working when you make a small change like replacing the air-freshener?

Why would I want to advertise the fact that I'm a Winnet?

It's all well and good claiming that one OS is cheaper than the other, but are they taking the Total Cost of Ownership into account!?

Ian

... is not a great advertisement for a motor car, as the old "If a [car|plane] were an operating system" polemic demonstrates.

Somehow, it seems appropriate that this plate should be found on Alan Partridge's car of choice, the Lexus IS200.

A1 X

TOP S20

PR1 MOS

M5 DOS

BAS 1C

COB 0L

C1 CS

VT 100

WIN 98

???

you may not need specialized training, but you can expect it to stall unexpectedly which often forces you to replace the engine. Opening and closing the rear window might allow you to restart start it, but only after the third time you try. The fact that you are asked four times if you *really* want to turn off the radio is considered a feature. Don't forget that every time they repair the M4, you need to buy a new car.

Of course, one does not require training to use a NT car.

BUT, in case you're driving and wish to ...

- change the radio station

WINDOWS WAY - usually it will just stop looking at some frequency with just noise, in which case you will have to restart the radio, or even worse, unplug it, turn off the car, restart the car, and plug the radio back on..

LINUX WAY - radio stopped working? kill -9 it. start the radio again. The rest of the car didn't even care the radio failed...

- If you ever tune up your engine and it doesn't work

WINDOWS WAY - putting the engine back to normal will require that you disassemble your entire car, assemble the engine, and only then reinstall all the parts you used to have... AGAIN

LINUX WAY - get the backup engine that you saved earlier, OR recompile the engine (read kernel). that's it.

- If you see a car just like yours next to you, but with a better engine, and you want yours that way

WINDOWS WAY - you BUY the whole car again, or , if it's a small part of the engine, just BUY the whole engine again, making you keep the old engine in your living room, completely unusable.

LINUX WAY - new version up? let's just compile it, run it, and that's it. the resto of your car doesn't have to be reinstalled... (like before recompiling the kernel) it's free... WOW... check all the new good stuff...

Any questions?

I prefer my free car.... super customizable...

Will my Citroen 2CV (in a nice shade of BSOD) be powerful enough to run this plate?

Would you realy want a symbol of unexplained crashes on the front and back of your car?

That's all well and good, but unfortunately you will have to reboot every time the light turns from red to green.

The buyer of W1NNT would need something appropriately dull, clunky and mid-90s to slap their cherished plate on. A rusting Mondeo perhaps. With a Blur cassette stuck in the stereo as your only ICE.

One sec? So everyone can just use MS Windows without training?

That's a first for me. I forever get people asking me how to do stuff on an MS system.

Surely the analogy should be:

I've driven the W1 NNT car before and I am used to it.

I've not driven the L1 NUX car and I'm too scared to give it a try. Ahhh, Nooo!!! it's different.

Anywho, the problem with the W1 NNT car is that you can't plug any peripherals into the lighter socket. Or, was that fixed in a version NT (other than NT 6 or whatever XP is)?

I think (maybe) I have seen that plate on a grey Ford Puma at sometime in the past, I wonder if that's the car it is on.

Not sure if it was the L7NUX or L1NUX, was in a car park as I wissed past.

But what's the fuss - I always wanted them (the DVLA) to release P155 OFF ..!..

S.

Or in dollars: $135,224.13

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:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they painted new lines on 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 windows, shut off the car, 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 it 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. The airbag system would ask, "Are you sure?" before deploying.

9. 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 antenna.

10. 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 percent or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.

11. 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.

12. You'd have to press the "start" button to turn the engine off.

On the w1nnt will the windscreen wipers randomly stop working causing the screen to fog over and making you to crash the car ?

Maybe the blue bonnet will become unlatched whilst doing 70mph on the motorway and give you a "blue screen" of death ?

But of course don't worry the satnav just might tell you that you are about to crash.

Finally , to stop the engine will you have to hit the "start" button ?

I occasionally see a car with R15 CPC driving around the Crawley area. That's a bit of a blast from the past.

"Or in dollars: $135,224.13"

You've got to be joking, right? More like $300,000ish by now...

It would appear that the ebay listing has been removed by ebay, but has been relisted here:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MS-Windows-Number-Plate-W1NNT_W0QQitemZ160172560458QQihZ006QQcategoryZ421QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

"You can just get in your car and drive it, with no specialized training" Hmm... isn't that not only the problem with most computer users, but also with most drivers I see? At least with Linux, my car wouldn't crash as much---to extend a bad analogy a little further.

And I just had to throw in: re. Mick Gower's # 12. "You'd have to press the start button to turn the engine off." That's exactly how some of the new 'keyless' ignitions work--where you have the fob in your pocket or put it in a slot in the dash. Sadly, some are just as clumsy to use and counterintuitive.

12a If the off button isn't obscured by a bloody great sign saying that you've just put petrol in the car....

And An Coward forgot

WIN 311 (if I got that one, I'd break it...if it didn't do itself)

Real men don't compile kernels, hey 'hack their registries'! I've heard Windows guys going on about it all the time...

"Damn," one will say to the other. "My Outlook Calendar keeps sending me notifications about meetings that happened last year, all of a sudden!"

"Ah!" exclaims the other. "That's a KNOWN ISSUE(TM)! it's because you installed the new driver for that GeForce 7300: simply *Hack* *Your* *Registry*," he will say, proudly (placing a special emphasis on the word 'hack'). "Look for HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet

Explorer\Main and scroll down to where it says 'Use Profile Assistant' and set it to 'no'.... Look for a Dword with a name of Install and Upgrade Automatic Assistant' and set it to 'no', add another Dword, with a name of 'AdHoc Assistant Poll Interval' and give it a value of '0x0E03'... blah blah blah... change it to Dword value of 'no' and add a Dword value called "Use Search Asst" and give it a value of '0xE0067'.... blah blah blah... Reboot your machine and recieve an error number 0x800ccc0e - but that's normal.... blah blah... then simply *Hack*Your*Hosts*File* to enter then name and IP address of the exchange server and roboot... blah blah blah... Recieve and error number of '0x800ce60e - but that's normal... blah blah... Then simply *Hack*Your*Registry* and look for HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Notepad`Main and look for a Dword called 'Use Password Assistant' and set it to 'no'... blah blah blah..."

...and so it goes on, for what seems like an interminable period - all of it recited directly from memory.

They carry on like this because they are 31337 H4X0r Dudes who can memorise vast swathes of meaningless gobbledegook, and use this ability to demean and belittle those around them. They think it's normal to get error messages that list the exact virtual memory address where a paging error (that you can't do anything about, and wheren't directly responsible for) occured.

And they hate Unix, of course, because Unix is Something To Do With Computers, which they Don't Know About - and since Knowing About Computers is their only means of maintaining a feeling of smug superiority over those around them, they assume that Unix must be some vile conspiracy, aimed at making them all look like passive-agressive losers with bad breath.

Oh, hang on: Unix IS a vile conspiracy, aimed at making them all look like passive-agressive losers. (They provide their own bad breath, of course.)

I've seen L1NUX from time to time on the A470 here in South Wales, and parked in the Tesco car park in Pontypridd. In recent memory it's been on a BMW of some description but for a while it was on a yellow Fiat Seicento Sporting.

If you (Steve Walker) are in South East Wales, then chances are you've seen L1NUX on a Puma. Otherwise, chances are you've seen L7NUX or L11NUX and the spacing has been hacked.

I might be REALLY alternative and, in 26 years time, register FR33 BSD...

Its an easy £1000 for them to make (lets face it - he's openly admitted that its illegally spaced), and if they are feeling really nasty they can take the registration off you!

Given that the cops don't seem to care about chasing real criminals any more anything that gets them easy money is an obvious target.

owned by a dodgy computer repair man as seen on 'rogue traders'

suprised?

i wasn't

Are you sure it wasn't openbsd on a tiger, or a leopard ?

You've got to be joking, right? More like $300,000ish by now...

- I think we need a "this post misses the point completely" piccy

Oh well, move along... there really is nothing to see, here.

A mate spotted this ligit plate a few years back:

PI55 0FF

The DLVA withdrew it quite quickly.

It's in Peterborough.

Anyone remember the burberry chavmobile on ebay? Also Peterborough. I am so glad to be out of that hole. Did you know buildings can actually go over two floors high?

Last time I checked you need to have lessons and get a license to drive.

...if I could get a surround for it that said "USERS ARE POMPOUS PRICKS".

Seriously - technical considerations aside, the holier-than-thou rhetoric from the Linux nutball 'community' that begs you to join and then shits on you if you ask how something works.

If operating system user communities were bars, the Windows community might be a bar where you walk in and nobody nods to greet you or even turns to look - but the if the linux community were a bar, there'd be a huge sign over it saying, "BAR! COME ON IN! WE WANT YOU TO COME TO OUR BAR!" and then the door would be locked. When you knocked and asked what was going on, they'd open the door, drag you in, punch you in the face, kick you in the stomach, call you a moron, throw you out on the sidewalk, and tell you to come back when you can figure out the combo on the padlock, as they slammed the door in your face.

So, even if the windows bar is a pretty lame joint, I'll drink there instead any day. At least I get served after I bang on the bar a few times.

but I often see XML down at the Garden City shopping mall in Perth (Western Australia)

on a black Saab in Hertford: EDL1N