GENERAL MOTORS INTRODUCES NEW INSTANT-WIN AIRBAGS DETROIT--
With third-quarter sales sluggish and its share of the domestic market down 11 percent since 1993, General Motors unveiled a new instant-win airbag contest Monday. The new airbags, which award fabulous prizes upon violent, high-speed impact with another car or stationary object, will come standard in all of the company's 1997 cars.
"Auto accidents have never been so exciting," said GM vice-president of marketing Roger Jenkins, who expects the contest to boost 1997 sales significantly. "When you play the new GM Instant Win Airbag Game, your next fatal collision could mean a trip for two to Super Bowl XXXI in New Orleans. Or a year's worth of free Mobil gasoline."
Though it does not officially begin until Jan. 1, 1997, the airbag promotion is already being tested in select cities, with feedback overwhelmingly positive. "As soon as my car started to skid out of control, I thought to myself, 'Oh, boy, this could be it--I could be a big winner!'" said Cincinnati's Martin Frelks, who lost his wife but won $50 Sunday when the Buick LeSabre they were driving hit an oil slick at 60 mph and slammed into an oncoming truck.
"When the car stopped rolling down the embankment, I knew Ellen was dead, but all I could think about was getting the blood and glass out of my eyes so I could read that airbag!"
"It's really addictive," said Sacramento, CA, resident Marjorie Kamp, speaking from her hospital bed, where she is listed in critical condition with severe brain hemorrhaging and a punctured right lung.
"I've already crashed four cars trying to win those Super Bowl tickets, but I still haven't won. I swear, I'm going to win those tickets--even if it kills me!" Kamp said that as soon as she is well enough, she plans to buy a new Pontiac Bonneville and drive it into a tree.
GM officials are not surprised the airbag contest has been so well received. "In the past, nobody really liked car wrecks, and that's understandable. After all, they're scary and dangerous and, sometimes, even fatal," GM CEO Paul Offerman said. "But now, when you drive a new GM car or truck, your next serious crash could mean serious cash.
Who wouldn't like that?" Offerman added that in the event a motorist wins a prize but is killed, that prize will be awarded to the next of kin. According to GM's official contest rules, odds of winning the grand prize, a brand-new 1997 Cutlass Supreme, are 1 in 43,000,000.
Statistical experts, however, say the real chances of winning are significantly worse. "If you factor in the odds of getting in a serious car accident in the first place--approximately 1 in 720,000--the actual odds of winning a prize each time you step in your car are more like 1 in 31 trillion."
Further, even if one is in an accident, there is no guarantee the airbag will inflate. "I was recently broadsided by a drunк driver in my new Chevy Cavalier," said Erie, PA, resident Jerry Polaner. "My car was totaled, and because it was the side of my car that got hit, my airbag didn't even inflate. But what really gets me is the fact that the drunк driver, who rammed my side with the front of his 1997 Buick Regal, won a $100 Office Depot gift certificate. That's just wrong."
You can never tell which way the train went by lookingat the track.
Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrongconclusion with confidence.
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damnfool discovers something which either abolishes thesystem or expands it beyond recognition.
Technology is dominated by those who manage what theydo not understand.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wroteprograms, then the first woodpecker that came alongwould destroy civilization.
The opulence of the front office decor varies inverselywith the fundamental solvency of the firm.
The attention span of a computer is only as long as itelectrical cord.
An expert is one who knows more and more about less andless until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universeand he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet painton it and he'll have to touch to be sure.
All great discoveries are made by mistake.
Always draw your curves, then plot your reading.
Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
All's well that ends.
A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept andthe hours are lost.
The first myth of management is that it exists.
A failure will not appear till a unit has passed finalinspection.
New systems generate new problems.
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires acomputer.
We don't know one millionth of one percent aboutanything.
Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishablefrom magic.
A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20men working 20 years make.
The faster a computer is, the faster it will reach acrashed state.
Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss puttingin an honest day's work.
Some people manage by the book, even though they don'tknow who wrote the book or even what book.
The primary function of the design engineer is to makethings difficult for the fabricator and impossible forthe serviceman.
To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job willtake the longest and cost the most.
After all is said and done, a hеll of a lot more is saidthan done.
Any circuit design must contain at least one part which isobsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three partswhich are still under development.
A complex system that works is invariably found to haveevolved from a simple system that works.
If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, trymultiplying by the page number.
Computers are unreliable, but humans are even moreunreliable. Any system which depends on humanreliability is unreliable.
Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down thatmight go into a "Pearl Harbor File."
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions ofpressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and othervariables the organism will do as it dамn well pleases.
If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious.
The more cordial the buyer's secretary, the greater the oddsthat the competition already has the order.
In designing any type of construction, no overall dimen-sion can be totaled correctly after 4:30 p.m. on Friday. Thecorrect total will become self-evident at 8:15 a.m. onMonday.
Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where ititches.
All things are possible except skiing through a revolvingdoor.
The only perfect science is hind-sight.
Work smarder and not harder and be careful of yor speling.
If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist.
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
When all else fails, read the instructions.
If there is a possibility of several things going wrongthe one that will cause the most damage will be the oneto go wrong.
Everything that goes up must come down.
Any instrument when dropped will roll into the leastaccessible corner.
Any simple theory will be worded in the most complicatedway.
Build a system that even a fool can use and only a foolwill want to use it.
The degree of technical competence is inverselyproportional to the level of management.
Any attempt to print Murphy's laws will jam the printer.