[geeks] KVM for Sun Sparc Servers with USB keyboards

[Phil Stracchino]

Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> On May 12, 2009, at 08:49 , Phil Stracchino wrote:
>> There is not a single US-built car on the market that
>> meets my functional needs and my standards for drivability, build
>> quality and - for lack of a better term - rationality of cabin fitting
>> and controls, at a price I'm willing to pay, and most vehicles coming
>> out of Detroit, Dearborn and Flint are ugly anyway.
> 
> Well, don't forget that most Hondas are made in the USA, along with  
> quite a few Toyotas.
> 
> You can make good cars in the USA, it's just the big three that can't/ 
> won't.

Exactly.  Mea culpa; I should have specified "US built and branded".

I actually rented a ... Chrysler or Plymouth (I don't remember which)
that was actually pretty civilized, a lot better than the Intrepid,
aside from its ocean-liner turning circle.  I was amused to discover on
the sill plate that it was built by Mitsubishi.

What was *more* amusing was the time shortly later, while looking for a
car to buy, when I was looking at a Mitsubishi 3000GT and talking to the
salesman about it, with a Probe behind me.  He mentioned the 3000 was
actually built by Ford, and I realized that I'd driven onto the lot in a
Plymouth built by Mitsubishi, and was now standing between a Mitsubishi
built by Ford and a Ford built by Mazda.


>> I bought a used Volvo this time around, and expect to replace it with
>> another one when it eventually fails at probably twice the probable
>> service life of anything built by the Big Three.
> 
> Which one did you get?

We managed to pick up a 2001 V70XC, which Volvo renamed XC70 in 2002,
for $7k and trade on the lemon Intrepid, which by then I was about ready
to push off a cliff.  It works very well for us.  Lots of comfort and
capacity while still being a car, not as minivan or SUV, well-designed
internally, well-engineered, good cabin ergonomics, decent fuel economy,
supremely competent on icy winter roads with its AWD, ABS and traction
control, and will tow five thousand pounds if we need it to.

> Chrysler couldn't build an anvil that didn't break.

Heh.  :)  I tried Chrysler because I'd heard they'd improved their
quality a lot, and hoped they'd be better on reliability than the Z28,
which in 90,000 miles or so went through two alternators and fragged
both its transmission and its differential, and I had to retorque the
intake manifold every alternate oil change or it'd start leaking coolant.

> When he got back he was pretty ticked off and the agency refunded  
> him.  They said that over a quarter of their 300M fleet lost the  
> transmission in the first half year and they were selling them off as  
> fast as they could get rid of them.

Ugh.  That's bad.  Do you happen to know whether that was the LH (fwd)
or LX (rwd) platform?

> The Ford Fusion was actually pretty nice though.  The rentals say it  
> runs fairly well and the transmissions are much better than the old  
> Taurus.  I know several people who rent them regularly with little  
> trouble.

I've never gotten on well with Fords.  I started to test-drive a Mustang
once, but my knees started to hurt before I even got the engine started.
 Ford also seems to have this penchant for hiding controls in
counter-intuitive places.  I was in a supermarket parking lot one time
taking my mother to the store in my parents' Ford station wagon, with a
guy in an SUV who obviously hadn't seen me backing into me and nowhere
to go, hunting frantically for the horn and I couldn't FIND it.  I
eventually discovered where they'd hidden it:  You had to push one of
the control stalks (can't remember if it was the turn signal or wiper
stalk) axially into the steering column.  WTF?!?


>> the Intrepid was a worn-out lemon at 98,000.  My wife is driving a
>> Mercedes C230 that I bought used in California for $11,000; it's about
>> to pass 200,000 miles and is still perfectly sound.
> 
> Is that the Kompressor?  I started to get one of those, but it didn't  
> quite pass the cargo test.

Nope, it's the '98, naturally aspirated 2.3L FI.


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
         Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.