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The Tesla also has 1/3 rd the range of a regular 30 mpg car. Which means it uses three times the power.

No. It means it uses less than 1/3rd the power. First, it's way more efficient. So for the same miles traveled, the EV uses less power, period. What that 1/3 range means is that batteries don't store as much energy per cubic foot as gasoline or diesel fuel does, that's all. And that is probably about to change anyway.

Nothing 'wrong' with the bailouts per se (of course being a government operation, lt was not a paragon of efficiency).

What people need to be upset about is what LED to the bailouts. Being upset with the bailout is like being upset with firefighters when they are using the jaws of life at an accident scene, be angry at the drunk driver who caused the crash, not the crew at the messy cleanup.

What most seem to not realize is about the banks is they already have paid back the money, and then some.. Other bailout targets like the auto industry, not such a great return. AIG? even a more negative return. Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, pretty much a disaster.

As far as 'Occupy' protesters saying' where is their bailout'? All I can say is this. If I had $1M dollars of my own cash, and had to invest it in Bank Of America, or Occupy protesters, I'd put it in BOA. BOA makes money. Some Occcupy protesters quit their job to protest. Would you put your savings in that? I wouldn't

That's an option for people with a brain cloud.

Never mod points when I need them! :-(

Joe Versus the Volcano

-Ster

Bollocks. You are implying that the same dollar that the corporation made in profit is taxed twice. It is not. The corporation's dollar in profit stays in the corporation. The individual's capital gains dollar comes from whoever paid a dollar more for the stock once it is sold.

There is only an indirect relationship between corporate profits and individual capital gains. I can for example own stock in a corporation that made billions in profit yet paid $0 in corporate taxes, that stock may have gone up several hundred percent.

Some companies pay dividends, which are taxed as capital gains. But that is only a portion of the market. And there is actually no requirement that a dividend be paid on profits; a company could lose money and yet choose to pay a dividend in order to prop up its stock price.

How could you possibly get +4 insightful? The Hurt Locker is one of the most awarded and acclaimed movies of the last decade. Its awards have their own (long) Wikipedia page. It has a 97% (!) amongst critics and 83% amongst users at Rotten Tomatoes, got a 4-star review from Roger Ebert, and it made something like triple its budget. The mods must be crazy. I guess I can hope they accidentally clicked "Insightful" instead of "Troll".

yes. appeal to popularity is your God, your Lord and Master. no sacrifice made at the altar of this God is too great. anyone who disagrees with popular opinion must be a total idiot. we must make appeals to the authority of popular taste whenever possible.... nevermind how fickle and malleable this is. that's just, details. we've got sales to make, god dammit.

How could you possibly get +4 insightful? The Hurt Locker is one of the most awarded and acclaimed movies of the last decade. Its awards have their own (long) Wikipedia page. It has a 97% (!) amongst critics and 83% amongst users at Rotten Tomatoes, got a 4-star review from Roger Ebert, and it made something like triple its budget. The mods must be crazy. I guess I can hope they accidentally clicked "Insightful" instead of "Troll".

Except that it's not a level playing field. Fossil fuels get heavily subsidized. According to this, (which I have not independently verified or checked sources on) solar would be cheaper if that was turned around.

At the very least "less optimal economy" seems like disingenuous or stupid way to judge the cost/benefit to me. The costs of global warming, asthma, coal-related deaths, and smog would massively tilt the scale in favor of green. We've let the economists and corporations convince us that fossil fuels' external costs will never ever ever have to be paid off though, just as we let economists and irresponsible politicians convince us that deficits don't matter.

I don't see why pundits are suddenly predicting it'll disrupt the market.

1. "Amazon" and "Kindle" already have significant mindshare in the general public, while Android tablets had to start from scratch.
2. Pundits are expecting it to "just work" with the same sort of tight vertical integration that helped make the iPad such a success.
3. Yes, its specs are similar to the Nook, only it does more than a Nook without having to be rooted first.
4. The "heavily-skinned, older version of Android" is not the same. All UIs are not equal.
5. There's no "suddenly" in the pundits' predictions. People have been expecting the Amazon tablet to be the strongest iPad competitor when it was barely a rumour.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Amazon has to offer. I love my iPad 2, but I'm eager to see something that actually challenges it, too.

http://www.suntimes.com/business/6971729-420/tribune-co.-reported-to-be-readying-tablet-distribution

Especially if large corps pay nothing and still complain about the high 35% corp tax rate. See: http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2011/03/ten_giant_us_companies_avoidin.html But hey, it's all legal so it must be OK!

#1. I'm 6'8" 315lbs and a hockey player. Try NOT applying your stupid "typical geek" stereotype to everyone you meet.

#2. Have you really not seen/heard the stories about passengers ganging up on another passenger in flight for stupid/simple reasons? There are hundreds of people on most of these flights, and if you are doing something that they perceive as endangering all of their lives, you've given them plenty of motivation to step outside of their comfort zones.

#3. If your options are (a) Sit and wait for them to crash your plane into a building or (b) Try to overpower them, in which case either you win and the plane can be landed safely, or you lose and the plane crashes, although likely in a field somewhere and not into a major metropolitan area, then logically which would you choose?

A few references for #2:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/5258502-418/houston-to-chicago-flight-diverts-in-st.-louis
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/02/16/idUSL16313540
Of course there's also United flight 93.

This is actually due to the fact that Sony digital projectors are so locked down with DRM that even changing the lens requires all kinds of password checks (which can potentially lock the camera down if not done correctly).

Sadly, this is one of the problems that digital projectors were *supposed* to fix. For years, it was a infamous practice for theater managers to extend projector bulb life by reducing the power of the lamp. Since most people don't notice (having no idea how the movie is *supposed* to look), they could get away with it. Roger Ebert in particular complained about this practice for decades (even organizing protests at certain theaters engaging in the practice). When digital projection came along, one of the selling points was that it produced a much more consistent image (and managers couldn't futz with it--reducing bulb strength, etc.).

Now, thanks to our good friends at Sony, it would seem like we're right back where we started from (maybe even worse, since this produces an even darker image than one of the celluloid projectors at half power).

Well I guess now that the NEA has slapped down Ebert's pronouncement that video games are not art he'll have to reverse his opinion. http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html

Everyone should watch the school documentary Waiting for Superman:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100929/REVIEWS/100929981

It's possible to take the same group of kids from the same underprivileged neighborhood, and send some of them to public schools where 50% will fail to graduate, and send some from the same pool to charter schools where *for less money per student* 90% will go on to attend college. It really is all about the schools, teachers, and methods, not the students, neighborhoods, or money.

The biggest culprit is teacher tenure. After a measly 2 years of teaching, public school teachers can get tenure and be almost impossible to fire for the rest of their lives, even if they're actively bad at their jobs. At the university level tenure is a useful tool for retaining teachers with unconventional views, who add to the campus experience; but at the high school level tenure is useless since kids have too many basics to learn for unconventional views to be given time. We should institute merit pay for teachers, and eliminate tenure--good teachers could make twice what average ones make, and bad ones could be fired.

The issue, doctors say, is that 3D works by tricking the brain into making you think you are physically moving in relation to your surroundings

No, that's not the worst issue. Walter Murch describes in an entry on Roger Ebert's blog, the convergence/focus issue, where the eye is expected to work in a way that millions of years of evolution never designed it to, where your eyes are asked to focus on an image very close, yet converge very far away. A quote from the article:

"But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen -- say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.

But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point. ...
Consequently, the editing of 3D films cannot be as rapid as for 2D films, because of this shifting of convergence: it takes a number of milliseconds for the brain/eye to "get" what the space of each shot is and adjust."

The latter part being bad news now that quick cuts are all the rage.

No, he makes himself look like a giant, pompous jerk with an ego the size of Jupiter, the card merely confirms it.

Aaaah!

Look, people need to understand something about this stupidity. Leading beigocrats like Ebert mean something stupid when they talk about Art (pretentious capital letter implied by the beigocracy). They mean, "Art that doesn't offend anyone that matters." Often, this is Art made by people who are long dead, although in film it includes films that win Academy awards.

Often, Art that is dismissed as garbage when it comes out, but which still becomes influential will be inducted into the canon. Stuff like a A Clockwork Orange which was scary when it came out but is now safely confined to a small number of film buffs. The important thing is that it has to be safe.

Fight Club is another one of these movies, Ebert claimed it was fascist when it first came out. By his low score review and his claim of fascism, he was basically claiming it was not Art.

Now, with video games, beigocrats like Ebert are still comfortable dismissing the entire form. So, they can make stupid claims like video games are not capital 'A' Art. Ebert will even argue, stupidly, that video games are not small 'a' art, just out of sheer bloody minded beigian fanaticism.

Ebert is offended by the entire videogame form, and he speaks for enough of the beigocracy, for the time being, that he is safe in dismissing all videogames. Really, though, all he's doing is what some people's parents do when they say, "That's not music, that's noise. Now the Beach Boys, that was music," just on a much larger scale.

Granted, he retracted his opinion after getting a thorough tongue lashing from gamers, but he still basically maintains that games cannot be art. With an art museum now planning an exhibit, his argument is kinda dead.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/okay_kids_play_on_my_lawn.html

Granted, he retracted his statement that video games aren't art after getting a thorough tongue lashing from gamers, but this definitely takes some wind out of his sails.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/okay_kids_play_on_my_lawn.html

She is just complaining about her work environment - http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/3725380-418/changes-after-facebook-ruling.html

Is she not just complaining about her work environment? http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/3725380-418/changes-after-facebook-ruling.html

Saturday Night Fever is an amazingly good movie if you realize that there's a lot more to it than disco and really ugly suits but rather there's lots of stuff about working class masculinity. Roger Ebert includes it in his 100 Greatest Movies http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990307/REVIEWS08/401010357/1023

As long as video games are not considered a culturally communicative benefit to society (see Roger Eberts article regarding how video games are lacking http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html ) then video games, no matter how breathtaking as Mass Effect et al well continue to be given short term billing by Hollywood. Lets face it, as far as Hollywood is concerned the video game industry is a threat to their own creative ability, they are not going to give a level playing field.

Directly because it benefit scanner mfgs. Indirectly because it continues to build a culture of fear that can be used for future control.

The TSA will NOT back down on this. The only way it'll stop is if enough people refuse to fly, and let them know why.

BTW here is a good blog from the movie commenter Roger Ebert on this, titled "Where I Draw the Line"

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/11/where_i_draw_the_line.html

Jim Emmerson, who runs a blog that's tied in with Roger Ebert's site, has written extensively about long shots. Here's one of his blog entries that highlights some real cinematic gems:

Scanner Blog

So what services does a Media company like The Times offer it's employee's to entice them from not competing directly against the company?

Oddly enough: a fairly secure source of income. As much as people like to think otherwise, advertising-based sites rarely make money -- especially when those sites create their own content rather than simply repost other people's work. Ebert's site has won several awards, is extremely popular for a one-person site, and yet advertising didn't get it to make a profit. I'm working as an entrepreneur in a different field, and though I'm planning on seeing it through these last two months or so before I release a product, right now it's all I can do to stop myself from giving up and begging for a boring job in a cubicle just so I can have a sense of security.

And don't forget Mr. Payback.

I think if the New York Times gave Chomsky a regular column his luster would have worn off by now.

Chomsky belongs to the same group as Steve Jobs and Rush Limbaugh and RMS. These people are not as common as you make out. Reality distortion fields that work on some (or most) of the people all of the time are a rare achievement.

I was watching Chomsky debates on YouTube the other day. It's hard to figure out what he's actually doing in his debating tactic. He seems to be convinced that human agency is a straight line, and therefore nearly any unknown can be brushed off the table at the first hint of smoking gun.

One tactic he used in the videos I watched boiled down to "some high level government official once wrote in a memo a bald confession of the true motive behind the initiative". He often adds something to the effect that "you can read it yourself". The logical foundation seems to be that high level government officials never colour outside the lines and that a certain type of memo that spills the beans negates 1000 official communications that adhere to the party line. I'm sure there's a grain of truth to that. Chomsky never pauses to assess whether it's a small grain or a large grain. That seems to be the essence of his rhetorical style: all grains of truth contrary to the hegemonic administration are created equal under God.

I've never been much of a Chomsky fan, but he's worth listening to from time to time.

Speaking of Rush, his debating tactics are certainly worse as noted by an irate movie critic. Put up or shut up

Rush has two primary demographics: the stupid, whom he addles, and the smug, who enjoy watching the former. This simple act never seems to grow stale.

In the last season of Celebrity Apprentice, he didn't even know how to type, use a MacBook, and Office! But then I am not surprised by these types of people. Heh. You can see the embedded video clip on here (probably only works for American locations).

They're good movies, but will never be viewed in the same category as something like Casablanca.

That depends on what the categories are. Roger Ebert puts both films in his list of "Great Movies", which I think qualifies as a category.

They're good movies, but will never be viewed in the same category as something like Casablanca.

That depends on what the categories are. Roger Ebert puts both films in his list of "Great Movies", which I think qualifies as a category.

They're good movies, but will never be viewed in the same category as something like Casablanca.

That depends on what the categories are. Roger Ebert puts both films in his list of "Great Movies", which I think qualifies as a category.

I assume that you are unaware of how important the Chinese market is for GM. Here is a recent article about it: China sales overtake U.S. for first time. Chinese car companies don't have to come over here, they can hurt GM at home.

And $40 million dollars doesn't seem unreasonable. That's only about 2000 vehicles at average US prices.

his movie reviews and books on movies nearly mandatory reading for enhancing your appreciation of movies.

Please. Ebert can't even follow the plot of simplistic action movies. I quote from his review of Mission: Impossible

And the momentum of the visuals prevents us from asking logical questions, such as, is physically copying a computer file onto another disc the only way to steal it? (My colleague Rich Elias has written that the obvious solution for the CIA would have been to hire Robert Redford's team from "Sneakers" to commit an online theft.)

Seriously? Did he miss the entire scene where they explained exactly why that wasn't viable? As in, the CIA wouldn't have placed that information in a computer connected to the network? I mean, I'm not going to defend that movie as being a good one, but I expect someone who gets paid to be a movie critic to not be lost in a plot that simple.

what has Ebert done for us lately?

Some of the most insightful and earnest writing currently available on the internet.

An example.

The producer of the full-length, animated movie "Sita Sings the Blues" recently found herself in a similar situation.
She had an eye-opening experience when she went to license the music in the movie (from the 1920s) and found out that it cost $50K for the rights and another $20K for the lawyers to do the clearance work - for recordings that are in the public domain (but the lyrics are not).

Because of that she decided to release the movie under the Creative Commons Share-Alike license - which, I believe, is the version most like the GPL(and she also took out a loan for the music rights). The movie has been very popular, Roger Ebert raved about it, even the guys on his old TV show (now called "At the Movies") gave it high marks. So eventually Netflix came a-calling, they offered her something like $7K up front for the right to stream the movie. However, she insisted that they stream it without DRM and their system is just not set up to do that, it's like they never conceived of the idea of Free content when they designed it. Kinda ironic in retrospect because I'd be really surprised if, just like most of the interwebs, a whole lot of netflix's infrastructure didn't run on Free software,

Anyway, she was willing to compromise - she would grant an exception to the licensing terms and they could DRM it, if they would run a placard at the start of the movie telling viewers that it was Free and where to get it from. No dice said Netflix. So she no dice too.

So, my bet is that Apple goes the same way as netflix - unwilling to compromise because their world view has no room in it for Free software for regular users.

BTW:
Sita Sings the Blues - main site
Download page - including bittorrent of a very nice 4GB 1080p mkv, also streaming from Youtube, etc
IMDB Page
Ebert's review

It's just traditional formula.

He didn't have to spell the formula out in full. That he did it anyway, does suggest, he was perfectly "in" Christianity — as is the GP's point.

BTW, every President since has also been a Christian. The current one was, reportedly, quite devout too — at least, until he moved to the capital.

Eh, this is the guy who gave Kick-Ass 1 star in a spoiler filled review focusing on only a single aspect of the movie. I think I can safely discount his opinions.

Ebert is getting old and cranky. Last week, he pronounced "Kick-Ass" "morally reprehensible".

The real question for games is not whether they're art, but whether they are "stories". A game with too much story becomes a "track ride", as you're forced from scene to scene along a predetermined plot track. Movie-licensed games generally suffer from this. Games with more free play are a place that you go, not a story. GTA is the best known example. GTA has subplots, but no overarching story arc. The GTA developers have the sense to realize that a GTA movie would be a bad idea, and have refused movie deals. A movie would produce pressure to lock the player onto a plot track, which would ruin the game.

MMORPGs have little story, and the extreme case, Second Life, has no story at all. It truly is just a place that you go. Yet Second Life is about art, fashion, and design. Second Life even has fashion magazines. Good ones. Runway was spectacular while it lasted.

Evidence: http://www.suntimes.com/news/2127966,CST-NWS-cameras29.article They resist EVERYTHING that could possibly catch them doing something they shouldn't be...you know like sounding like hard-asses when people ask them basic questions such as "what am I being stopped for?" What is their problem with every technology that gets introduced? 911 operators have all their calls recorded, why can't these men and women agree to this? It looks like they're trying to hide things. The recent news reports of off-duty cops beating women, getting in to bar fights etc. isn't exactly helping their case either. Again, my two cents, but based on actually reading the news!

Andy Ihnatko's Sun Times review + Unboxing

Xeni Jardin's Boing Boing review

Goatberg's WSJ review

Baig's USA Today review

and Pogue's awkward review for NYT

Obama does have some sense of health care systems, Michael Obama worked at the University of Chicago Medical Center and pushed the Urban Health Initiative, a patient dumping scheme where "low income" patients were redirected to clinics so beds could be saved for people with insurance. The firm that was hired to sell the Urban Health Initiative is owned by David Axelrod so the Obama administration does have experience.
Urban Health Initiative

Even focusing in detecting the pornographic, that is heavily dependant on context, specially when you try to say much in few words, Even if a image worth 1000 words you can still misunderstand it (as this soldier found)

We should contact the people at Muvico and let them know that the managers of the theater in Rosemont, IL were being total bastards about this. Here's the contact information I was able to dig up in about 5 minutes:

We know who decided to press charges because of TFA:

But Tumpach insisted Wednesday that’s not what she was doing — she was actually taping parts of her sister’s surprise birthday party celebrated at the Muvico Theater in Rosemont.
[...]
Managers contacted police, who examined the small digital camera, which also records video segments, Cmdr. Frank Siciliano said. Officers found that Tumpach had taped “two very short segments” of the movie — no more than four minutes total, he said.

Tumpach was arrested after theater managers insisted on pressing charges, he said.

(emphasis added)

Muvico is a chain of 9 luxury theaters, as you can read on their about page:

Muvico Entertainment, L.L.C. (“Muvico” or “the Company”) is a growing chain of premium, megaplex motion picture theaters in the United States. The Company currently operates 154 screens in 9 locations located in Florida, California, and Illinois. The Company’s theaters have developed a reputation as true entertainment destinations — attracting patrons from as far as 25 miles away.

The damn site is full of flash & images, but here are the corporate officers who should hear about what the managers of the Rosemont, IL theater's actions:

President & CEO - Hal Cleveland
General Counsel & CAO - Neil F Bretan
VP of Finance - Alan Rainbeau
VP of Operations - James E. Herd, Jr.

CONTACT US

MUVICO THEATERS
3101 N. Federal Hwy. 6th Floor
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306-1042

For General Questions please contact us at:
E-mail: Questions@muvico.com

• Myth: The prize is awarded to recognize efforts for peace, human rights and democracy only after they have proven successful.
• Fact: More often, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see the effort through, sometimes at critical moments.

While I can appreciate the aesthetic behind your choice of corridors, my favorite corridor is still the Laser Corridor from Resident Evil... it even has a sense of humor.

Considering they can't even jam them for prisons, I doubt they'll have much luck doing the same at a school. Take these recent shootings for example when the school failed to notify everyone in time. Parents will demand that they allow them, the cell providers will demand that they allow them as well, indicating they will interfere with surrounding neighborhoods, and if the result is the same as the prisons.

Personally I don't have an issue with them. Students can't talk on them during class and if they text and get caught, then they lose them. No different than passing notes in the 20th century albeit more efficient.

as quoted in the the Sun-Times article Jeffrey Michael, one of the owners of Horizon, as saying, "We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization."

From the Sun-Times article:

Jeffrey Michael, whose family has run Horizon for more than 25 years, said: "The statements are obviously false, and it's our intention to prove that."

He said that while she moved out recently, the company never had a conversation about the post and never asked her to take it down.

"We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization," he said, noting that the company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation it wants to preserve.

Actually - the Sun-Times article has a quote that I'd say is way more damaging than the accusation: Tweet about apartment mold draws lawsuit:
He said that while she moved out recently, the company never had a conversation about the post and never asked her to take it down.
"We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization," [italics mine] he said, noting that the company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation it wants to preserve.