Trabant

trabantKot­tke, the author of another of my favorite web­sites, did a story on how a com­pany is updat­ing the Trabant.

The Tra­bant, you see, is one of the worst cars ever made. (Thank you, for­merly com­mu­nist East­ern Europe.) It was a hor­ri­ble pol­luter, ter­ri­bly unre­li­able, ugly — and I have now run out of bad superla­tives. This com­pany is mak­ing it into a fun car that would be desir­able to almost any­one that likes new lit­tle cars. (Me. In fact, I’d like one for Christmas.)

Humans some­times amaze me in a good way.

I disagree with Kottke

kottke

Once some­one has an iPhone, it is going to be tough to per­suade them that they also need to spend money on and carry around a ded­i­cated GPS device, point-and-shoot cam­era, or tape recorder unless they have an unusual need.” from here.

I’m not an iPhone user, sim­ply because I can’t afford the monthly charges. How­ever, even if I were, I would not give up my beloved point-and-shoot. I like tak­ing pho­tos, and there just isn’t as much qual­ity or con­trol with any iPhone.

Hav­ing said that, it is amaz­ing all the things that an iPhone can do. It’s the Swiss Army Knife of the late 00’s.