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Nov 3 2007 10:33AM EDT

Stupid Technology, GM-style

I'm rarely in a General Motors car -- as is the case for more and more people these days. But while here in New Hampshire, I had a rental Buick Lacrosse. I actually hadn't even known there was a Buick called a Lacrosse. It was a long, mushy, unremarkable boat of a car, and I probably would have thought it was perfectly adequate except for one feature: It had some kind of technology that automatically turned down the stereo as you slowed, and turned the volume back up as the car went faster.

I know this isn't new -- I encountered it once before in a GM rental several years ago. But I thought then, and think now: What dope thought this is a good idea? If I want the volume up or down, I think I can manage it myself. And why would an engineer presume to know how much I want the volume to change should the internal car noise change?

To add to the insult, I could find no way to turn the feature off. I did everything short of opening up the owner's manual, but no button, no menu, led to a way to kill the auto-volume gremlin.

lacrosse.bmp

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