VW appears to have made a large commitment to EV development. Of course they have to, since their credibility in ICEs is gone; many car buyers will no longer consider a gasoline or diesel car from the company. But even VW can't cheat on the emissions results of an EV.
Nissan has sold 250,000 Leafs so far. That's a small part of their production but it isn't "not wanting to do EVs". I expect that the next generation Leaf (with 200+ mile range) will sell even better, especially in the US.
I will grant that the Chevy Bolt is a half-hearted effort so far. So are all the compliance models with limited range that many car companies have offered. In the US they're usually only sold in California and other markets where EV sales are mandated.
Comcast is the largest cable television company in the US. It also owns one of the major broadcast networks (NBC) and a large movie studio (Universal). More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The concept: the server measures the ping time to each contestant. It then adds delays when it processes packets from the people with shorter ping times so that the actual time for each contestant is equal. (It might be easier to implement by putting a ping equalization server between the internet connection and the server that actually runs the game.) Now all the players are on an equal footing, at least so far as internet delays are concerned. They can still gain some advantage with faster computers and high refresh rate monitors, but those tweaks are available to everybody.
Of course, some of the gamers in Chicago won't want to play because they enjoy being more equal than others. Application of social pressure might be necessary. "What's wrong, Chicago gamer? Chicken?"
Yes, really. Machine language. Not even assembler. Punching numeric codes into cards. The 1620 was a decimal computer, so that wasn't quite as mind-bending as an octal or hexadecimal machine language would have been. That was in high school; computers in schools were still a rare thing in those days (1971).
The 1620 was already an antique by then; in the fall the school replaced it with a less-antique 1130 because IBM was no longer willing to rent out the 1620. (IBM had run out of people who knew how to fix them and they were probably running low on spare parts as well; they hadn't made the system for years, so any spares they had were removed from decommissioned computers.)
The user who is having trouble with multiple open documents probably doesn't have a computer that is too slow overall. What the user has is a computer with insufficient RAM to handle the workload. That gets worse over time; although the memory demands of Microsoft's operating systems has been pretty stable since Vista, the applications keep getting bigger. (Web browsers in particular consume more and more RAM because the web pages keep getting more complex.)
Installing more RAM in that computer would likely make it much faster at handling all those documents. Some older systems have already hit their RAM ceiling, but many have not and it's usually not a costly upgrade. It is true that many companies never upgrade existing computers, in which case they won't be considering that option.
One data point: the satellite network proposed by SpaceX will use altitudes ranging from 715 miles to 823 miles. The altitude of a geostationary satellite is 22,236 miles. In both cases the path to the satellite is somewhat longer because the satellite is almost certain not to be directly over you. (If you're in the continental US a geostationary satellite will NEVER be directly overhead even if you're at the correct longitude because all the land is above the Tropic of Cancer. The SpaceX satellites might briefly be directly overhead.
The round trip path to a SpaceX satellite might be as long as 2,000 miles if the satellite is far from being directly over you. That's the worst case, because beyond that point there will be another one that is closer. That distance would add about 11 milliseconds to your ping time. In the ideal case when the satellite is directly overhead, the delay falls to 8 milliseconds. There is also some store and forward delay but that's true every time your packets go through an additional hop. The LEO lag is not zero but it's not terrible either.
In contrast, the round trip path to a geostationary satellite is at LEAST 44,500 miles; that path would add a quarter of a second to your ping time. Your actual path will be a bit longer because the satellite is not at the same longitude and latitude as you, but it doesn't make a huge difference to the numbers. That is more than 20 times worse than the path through an low earth orbit satellite.
If you transition from male to female as late in life as Maura, even taking hormones has limited effects. Hormones can't undo the differences in facial structure, the broad shoulders, or the narrow hips; bone structure is wired in by then. They don't stop beard growth, though they will slow hair growth elsewhere on the body. They may stop further progress of male pattern baldness, but whatever hair has already been lost is probably gone for good. (Some people do experience modest regrowth.) They will cause some breast development but not as much as in someone who transitioned earlier, so the late transitioner is more likely to want implants..
As an extra added bonus, facial hair removal is likely to be more costly. Laser removal is effective for many people who transition early in life. But it doesn't work on gray hair, including beard hair, leaving only the more expensive option of electrolysis. Most will need some electrolysis anyway for full removal, but it's a hair-by-hair process rather than a bulk one so whatever reduction can be achieved with laser reduces the overall cost.
If you were going to hire a trans actress for the role, you'd want one who transitioned late in life, who hasn't had facial surgery, and who is either not taking hormones or has just started them. (In a later plot development Maura is unable to go on hormone therapy, but that's probably in part a plot device to deal with the fact that Tambor's breasts are not developing.) If they had already had facial hair removal you could probably get around that with makeup, and the actor could wear a packer to produce the proper bulge if it's ever needed for a scene. I don't believe Tambor ever does frontal nudity in the show (you do see his bare butt) so that's not an issue. I'm guessing that the number of actors who could fill that list of needs and who are good enough for a major television production is zero.
Comcast has been doing that for years. If you don't want it, the easiest workaround is to supply your own router rather than using one of theirs. They'll still let you do that for now.
In the first season, Jeffrey Tambor's portrayal of Maura as a woman wasn't very convincingly female, especially not in the first couple of episodes. And it wasn't MEANT to be. Maura was in the early stages of transition; she was still learning how to be a woman. As the series continues into the second and third seasons you can see her develop; she is much more comfortable in her skin and moves and talks in a much more feminine way.
She would still have trouble passing, but guess what? Most people who transition to female at a late age, as Maura did, will have the same difficulty; the traces of a life spent under the influence of testosterone are hard to erase. Applications of large sums of money, as Caitlin Jenner did, can help; Jenner has had facial hair removal, facial feminization surgery, and breast implants. (It's public knowledge that she has had those procedures.) The total cost is probably well over $50,000; that's before she spent a dime on things like her wardrobe, nor have I included the cost of hormone therapy or of the psychiatric examinations that most medical practices require before prescribing hormones or doing surgery.
I'm all in favor of giving transgender roles to transgender actors when possible. But in the case of Transparent it likely wasn't possible, and even if it had been it would have been a less effective program. There aren't many trans actors of that age to choose from; I suspect you can count the good ones on the fingers of no hands. An actor who transitioned long ago would have more difficulty portraying the awkwardness of the early stages of transition than Tambor did. Finally, Tambor's role gains some power from the fact that he is famous, in much the same way that Tom Hanks in Philadelphia did. When we watch Tambor it's not just that some random old person is transitioning, it's as if somebody we KNOW is transitioning because we're already familiar with him from other shows and movies. That would be lost if they had cast an unknown trans actress, and perforce it would be an unknown as there are no famous 70 year old trans actresses.
Ubuntu was pursuing a different convergence strategy. Like Microsoft, they believed that they could create a single user interface that would span desktop and laptop computers, phones, and tablets. They were wrong, and now they're abandoning that strategy.
Ubuntu is dropping a bunch of projects. Development on Unity, Mir, and Ubuntu OS are all ending, so there is less need for developers.
Ubuntu's core products, the desktop and server distributions, appear to be healthy. Abandoning Unity will probably strengthen acceptance of the desktop version, as some users did not like that environment. Ubuntu as a convergence system for phones and tablets is dead, but overall I believe it's alive and well.
Netflix is certainly winning in hours of viewing. YouTube may actually have more videos watched because most of its content is short things that last only a few minutes, while Netflix content starts at 20 minutes or so ("half hour" TV episodes) and goes up to over two hours (longer films).
That kind of music is still being made. Check out hardcore.
Back in the 50s pop songs were short; very few ran over three minutes. Going even farther back, the upper bound of the length of a classic popular or blues song from the 20s and 30s was three minutes, because they were recorded direct to disc and that's how long the 78 masters ran. Pop song length crept up during the 60s and 70s, though punk was a counterforce with its return to short songs. In the recent past we settled in with four minutes being the typical length, with few songs running under three or over five.
This article doesn't talk much about the basic issues that are pushing the writers toward a strike. A big driving force is that they are making less money because of the shorter seasons on cable and streaming; people are only getting paid for 10 or 12 episodes instead of 22, and that means a big pay cut. Often they are still tied down by exclusivity agreements, which means that they can't make up for the shorter season by doing some work for another show. So there is more work for writers because more shows are being made, but at the same time it's becoming more difficult to make a good living at it.
That's one thing that a new Writers Guild contract could improve, by mandating a relationship between season length and the length of exclusive commitment that can be associated with it. So, for example, a writer who does a 10 or 12 episode season for one show might be allowed to do a second 10 episode show or pick up some individual episodes on other shows, while a writer who does a 22 episode show could be required to be exclusive for the entire year.
But production of those upcoming fall shows happens during the summer. If there is a strike for a significant amount of time, the fall premieres will be delayed.
The question is whether those lower paying roles employ women because women seek them out, or whether the other positions in the company are not held by women because the company discriminates against employing them and therefore those are the only jobs available for women. Google may be guilty of some discrimination in hiring but they are far from the worst offenders in Silicon Valley; many horror stories have come out of other large employers such as Facebook and Uber.
One statistic that I find fascinating is that single men and single women are essentially at pay parity in the US. (Last time I saw a number it was 98%, and the fact that men hold more dangerous jobs on average is surely enough to account for the remaining 2%.) But married men make more than single men, and married women make less than single women.
Having your car at the destination is not always a benefit. If you travel to New York City, for example, it's a distinct liability. You're not going to want to drive it unless you're planning a trip well outside the city; if you're going almost anywhere inside the city limits you're better off taking the subway or a taxi or Uber. And it will cost you $60/day to park, and another parking fee if you drive anywhere; no free parking at New York hotels or pretty much anywhere else in the city.
And there were delays to United flights from Louisville the next morning. The airline has not specified the reason, but it's likely that they were caused by that crew being delayed.
The limit is 4x, not 3x. From the relevant regulation: "Over 2 hours arrival delay: 400% of one-way fare (but no more than $1,350)." And United did offer that amount or close to it; you only get compensation for the one-way fare, and $800 is about what it costs on that short route.
It is true that there is no limit to the amount that an airline can offer voluntarily. But as you point out, why would they choose to offer more than what they have to pay if they involuntarily bump somebody? Fear of bad PR is the only reason, and now that somebody has set off that bomb the airlines may have to rethink their policies.
I expect that the end game won't be for the airlines to pay more. Instead, it will be more explicit language in the lowest prices ticket classes. Passengers will be fully aware of the possibility of being asked to leave a plane, rather than having it buried deeply in a contract of carriage that is too long to expect most people to read. And they may offer an upgrade in priority for an additional fee, which passengers can pay for or not as suits their needs. For example, if I'm traveling to go to a wedding I might pay for the upgrade on the trip to the wedding to make sure I don't miss it, but forgo the guarantee on the return trip because I'm in no particular hurry to get home. (That's assuming that I'm still guaranteed a flight eventually, some additional compensation, and accommodations while waiting if necessary.)
I was diamond medallion on Delta for a while, and one of the perks that comes with that status is that the airline guarantees that they will sell you a seat on any flight, even if it's already excessively overbooked, and (implicitly) even if that means they have to get someone else off. This usually works out fine, because the high-status last-minute purchaser is paying full fare for the ticket and there are plenty of people who are willing to be bought off the plane for significantly less than that. But in rare cases complying with their commitment to the high-status passenger could require them to involuntarily bump someone.
This is exactly the kind of problem that exists in the system: that some passengers are more equal than others. Thus the outrage. The "random" selection of passengers who were asked to deplane presumably did not include any of those more equal people.
A remarkable triumph of design and engineering. Pushing so much speed out of relatively simple mechanics and electronics was quite a feat.
Nowadays a good laser printer can print faster; 30 pages per minute is the equivalent of about 1,800 lines per minute. And that's only a midrange printer; a really high end printer can do double or more that speed. But it's not impressive in the same way, just as a TGV going 200 miles per hour doesn't have the same visceral impact as a steam engine going 100 miles per hour.
There are probably half a dozen more that I haven't seen. I'd like to see the technology survive for the sake of the films where it really adds something.
I also saw the three Hobbit films in HFR (high frame rate) 3D. (Like Avatar and Hugo, they were filmed natively in 3D.) I didn't cite them as examples because I'm not in love with them as films. Jackson tried to do too much with too little source material, he completely changed the tone of what is supposed to be a charming children's story, and he committed the cardinal sin of not trusting his audience when he decided to end part 2 with a cliffhanger. (Trying to make sure people came back for part 3 is the only justification for ending it in the middle of a battle rather than ending part 2 at the end of the battle, which would have been much more natural. If I were ever to show the trilogy at home I would fix that; I'd splice the battle scene together to run as a unit at the end of part 2 and take the bathroom and snack break after it was over.) But the 3D was effective at immersing you in the environment; it's a showcase for what the technology can do.
HFR and 3D are a synergistic combination; each enhances the sense of realism of the other. That was perhaps the reason that some people reacted so negatively to its use in The Hobbit. They don't want to be immersed quite that thoroughly in a movie experience, they prefer a bit of separation from it. Virtual reality movies, should they ever appear, will be a tough sell to people who feel that way.
The ones inside the ceiling are the elevation speakers for Atmos and DTS:X. If you don't have a high ceiling room that's the only way to get them in the right place.
That's why movies have been a popular destination for teens for many years. Private enough for making out, not private enough for going all the way, and there is an easy escape if things go wrong. (If the making out thing just isn't working for the two of you you can watch the movie, and if you have to escape from a situation where you are being uncomfortably pressured you can get up and go to the lobby.) They're still learning about their sexuality; they don't trust their dates or themselves enough to go to a more private place, and rightly so.
A movie could also be a suitable destination for a first or second date for adults for the same reasons.
Also, teens often don't have access to those more private and comfortable places. They still live with parents, and not all parents are understanding about having a date visit. They can't afford hotel rooms, even if they can find one that will take cash rather than insisting on a credit card. Making out in a car has its own discomforts, and urban teens may not even have access to a car.
Slashdot Mirror
VW appears to have made a large commitment to EV development. Of course they have to, since their credibility in ICEs is gone; many car buyers will no longer consider a gasoline or diesel car from the company. But even VW can't cheat on the emissions results of an EV.
Nissan has sold 250,000 Leafs so far. That's a small part of their production but it isn't "not wanting to do EVs". I expect that the next generation Leaf (with 200+ mile range) will sell even better, especially in the US.
I will grant that the Chevy Bolt is a half-hearted effort so far. So are all the compliance models with limited range that many car companies have offered. In the US they're usually only sold in California and other markets where EV sales are mandated.
Comcast is the largest cable television company in the US. It also owns one of the major broadcast networks (NBC) and a large movie studio (Universal). More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The concept: the server measures the ping time to each contestant. It then adds delays when it processes packets from the people with shorter ping times so that the actual time for each contestant is equal. (It might be easier to implement by putting a ping equalization server between the internet connection and the server that actually runs the game.) Now all the players are on an equal footing, at least so far as internet delays are concerned. They can still gain some advantage with faster computers and high refresh rate monitors, but those tweaks are available to everybody.
Of course, some of the gamers in Chicago won't want to play because they enjoy being more equal than others. Application of social pressure might be necessary. "What's wrong, Chicago gamer? Chicken?"
Yes, really. Machine language. Not even assembler. Punching numeric codes into cards. The 1620 was a decimal computer, so that wasn't quite as mind-bending as an octal or hexadecimal machine language would have been. That was in high school; computers in schools were still a rare thing in those days (1971). The 1620 was already an antique by then; in the fall the school replaced it with a less-antique 1130 because IBM was no longer willing to rent out the 1620. (IBM had run out of people who knew how to fix them and they were probably running low on spare parts as well; they hadn't made the system for years, so any spares they had were removed from decommissioned computers.)
Second language: Fortran. Also on the 1620.
The user who is having trouble with multiple open documents probably doesn't have a computer that is too slow overall. What the user has is a computer with insufficient RAM to handle the workload. That gets worse over time; although the memory demands of Microsoft's operating systems has been pretty stable since Vista, the applications keep getting bigger. (Web browsers in particular consume more and more RAM because the web pages keep getting more complex.)
Installing more RAM in that computer would likely make it much faster at handling all those documents. Some older systems have already hit their RAM ceiling, but many have not and it's usually not a costly upgrade. It is true that many companies never upgrade existing computers, in which case they won't be considering that option.
One data point: the satellite network proposed by SpaceX will use altitudes ranging from 715 miles to 823 miles. The altitude of a geostationary satellite is 22,236 miles. In both cases the path to the satellite is somewhat longer because the satellite is almost certain not to be directly over you. (If you're in the continental US a geostationary satellite will NEVER be directly overhead even if you're at the correct longitude because all the land is above the Tropic of Cancer. The SpaceX satellites might briefly be directly overhead.
The round trip path to a SpaceX satellite might be as long as 2,000 miles if the satellite is far from being directly over you. That's the worst case, because beyond that point there will be another one that is closer. That distance would add about 11 milliseconds to your ping time. In the ideal case when the satellite is directly overhead, the delay falls to 8 milliseconds. There is also some store and forward delay but that's true every time your packets go through an additional hop. The LEO lag is not zero but it's not terrible either.
In contrast, the round trip path to a geostationary satellite is at LEAST 44,500 miles; that path would add a quarter of a second to your ping time. Your actual path will be a bit longer because the satellite is not at the same longitude and latitude as you, but it doesn't make a huge difference to the numbers. That is more than 20 times worse than the path through an low earth orbit satellite.
One use case: running a system management program. Some of them have GUIs. I might want to sit at my desk and do that to a server.
If you transition from male to female as late in life as Maura, even taking hormones has limited effects. Hormones can't undo the differences in facial structure, the broad shoulders, or the narrow hips; bone structure is wired in by then. They don't stop beard growth, though they will slow hair growth elsewhere on the body. They may stop further progress of male pattern baldness, but whatever hair has already been lost is probably gone for good. (Some people do experience modest regrowth.) They will cause some breast development but not as much as in someone who transitioned earlier, so the late transitioner is more likely to want implants..
As an extra added bonus, facial hair removal is likely to be more costly. Laser removal is effective for many people who transition early in life. But it doesn't work on gray hair, including beard hair, leaving only the more expensive option of electrolysis. Most will need some electrolysis anyway for full removal, but it's a hair-by-hair process rather than a bulk one so whatever reduction can be achieved with laser reduces the overall cost.
If you were going to hire a trans actress for the role, you'd want one who transitioned late in life, who hasn't had facial surgery, and who is either not taking hormones or has just started them. (In a later plot development Maura is unable to go on hormone therapy, but that's probably in part a plot device to deal with the fact that Tambor's breasts are not developing.) If they had already had facial hair removal you could probably get around that with makeup, and the actor could wear a packer to produce the proper bulge if it's ever needed for a scene. I don't believe Tambor ever does frontal nudity in the show (you do see his bare butt) so that's not an issue. I'm guessing that the number of actors who could fill that list of needs and who are good enough for a major television production is zero.
Comcast has been doing that for years. If you don't want it, the easiest workaround is to supply your own router rather than using one of theirs. They'll still let you do that for now.
In the first season, Jeffrey Tambor's portrayal of Maura as a woman wasn't very convincingly female, especially not in the first couple of episodes. And it wasn't MEANT to be. Maura was in the early stages of transition; she was still learning how to be a woman. As the series continues into the second and third seasons you can see her develop; she is much more comfortable in her skin and moves and talks in a much more feminine way.
She would still have trouble passing, but guess what? Most people who transition to female at a late age, as Maura did, will have the same difficulty; the traces of a life spent under the influence of testosterone are hard to erase. Applications of large sums of money, as Caitlin Jenner did, can help; Jenner has had facial hair removal, facial feminization surgery, and breast implants. (It's public knowledge that she has had those procedures.) The total cost is probably well over $50,000; that's before she spent a dime on things like her wardrobe, nor have I included the cost of hormone therapy or of the psychiatric examinations that most medical practices require before prescribing hormones or doing surgery.
I'm all in favor of giving transgender roles to transgender actors when possible. But in the case of Transparent it likely wasn't possible, and even if it had been it would have been a less effective program. There aren't many trans actors of that age to choose from; I suspect you can count the good ones on the fingers of no hands. An actor who transitioned long ago would have more difficulty portraying the awkwardness of the early stages of transition than Tambor did. Finally, Tambor's role gains some power from the fact that he is famous, in much the same way that Tom Hanks in Philadelphia did. When we watch Tambor it's not just that some random old person is transitioning, it's as if somebody we KNOW is transitioning because we're already familiar with him from other shows and movies. That would be lost if they had cast an unknown trans actress, and perforce it would be an unknown as there are no famous 70 year old trans actresses.
Ubuntu was pursuing a different convergence strategy. Like Microsoft, they believed that they could create a single user interface that would span desktop and laptop computers, phones, and tablets. They were wrong, and now they're abandoning that strategy.
Ubuntu is dropping a bunch of projects. Development on Unity, Mir, and Ubuntu OS are all ending, so there is less need for developers.
Ubuntu's core products, the desktop and server distributions, appear to be healthy. Abandoning Unity will probably strengthen acceptance of the desktop version, as some users did not like that environment. Ubuntu as a convergence system for phones and tablets is dead, but overall I believe it's alive and well.
Netflix is certainly winning in hours of viewing. YouTube may actually have more videos watched because most of its content is short things that last only a few minutes, while Netflix content starts at 20 minutes or so ("half hour" TV episodes) and goes up to over two hours (longer films).
That kind of music is still being made. Check out hardcore.
Back in the 50s pop songs were short; very few ran over three minutes. Going even farther back, the upper bound of the length of a classic popular or blues song from the 20s and 30s was three minutes, because they were recorded direct to disc and that's how long the 78 masters ran. Pop song length crept up during the 60s and 70s, though punk was a counterforce with its return to short songs. In the recent past we settled in with four minutes being the typical length, with few songs running under three or over five.
This article doesn't talk much about the basic issues that are pushing the writers toward a strike. A big driving force is that they are making less money because of the shorter seasons on cable and streaming; people are only getting paid for 10 or 12 episodes instead of 22, and that means a big pay cut. Often they are still tied down by exclusivity agreements, which means that they can't make up for the shorter season by doing some work for another show. So there is more work for writers because more shows are being made, but at the same time it's becoming more difficult to make a good living at it.
That's one thing that a new Writers Guild contract could improve, by mandating a relationship between season length and the length of exclusive commitment that can be associated with it. So, for example, a writer who does a 10 or 12 episode season for one show might be allowed to do a second 10 episode show or pick up some individual episodes on other shows, while a writer who does a 22 episode show could be required to be exclusive for the entire year.
But production of those upcoming fall shows happens during the summer. If there is a strike for a significant amount of time, the fall premieres will be delayed.
The question is whether those lower paying roles employ women because women seek them out, or whether the other positions in the company are not held by women because the company discriminates against employing them and therefore those are the only jobs available for women. Google may be guilty of some discrimination in hiring but they are far from the worst offenders in Silicon Valley; many horror stories have come out of other large employers such as Facebook and Uber.
One statistic that I find fascinating is that single men and single women are essentially at pay parity in the US. (Last time I saw a number it was 98%, and the fact that men hold more dangerous jobs on average is surely enough to account for the remaining 2%.) But married men make more than single men, and married women make less than single women.
Having your car at the destination is not always a benefit. If you travel to New York City, for example, it's a distinct liability. You're not going to want to drive it unless you're planning a trip well outside the city; if you're going almost anywhere inside the city limits you're better off taking the subway or a taxi or Uber. And it will cost you $60/day to park, and another parking fee if you drive anywhere; no free parking at New York hotels or pretty much anywhere else in the city.
And there were delays to United flights from Louisville the next morning. The airline has not specified the reason, but it's likely that they were caused by that crew being delayed.
The limit is 4x, not 3x. From the relevant regulation: "Over 2 hours arrival delay: 400% of one-way fare (but no more than $1,350)." And United did offer that amount or close to it; you only get compensation for the one-way fare, and $800 is about what it costs on that short route.
It is true that there is no limit to the amount that an airline can offer voluntarily. But as you point out, why would they choose to offer more than what they have to pay if they involuntarily bump somebody? Fear of bad PR is the only reason, and now that somebody has set off that bomb the airlines may have to rethink their policies.
I expect that the end game won't be for the airlines to pay more. Instead, it will be more explicit language in the lowest prices ticket classes. Passengers will be fully aware of the possibility of being asked to leave a plane, rather than having it buried deeply in a contract of carriage that is too long to expect most people to read. And they may offer an upgrade in priority for an additional fee, which passengers can pay for or not as suits their needs. For example, if I'm traveling to go to a wedding I might pay for the upgrade on the trip to the wedding to make sure I don't miss it, but forgo the guarantee on the return trip because I'm in no particular hurry to get home. (That's assuming that I'm still guaranteed a flight eventually, some additional compensation, and accommodations while waiting if necessary.)
I was diamond medallion on Delta for a while, and one of the perks that comes with that status is that the airline guarantees that they will sell you a seat on any flight, even if it's already excessively overbooked, and (implicitly) even if that means they have to get someone else off. This usually works out fine, because the high-status last-minute purchaser is paying full fare for the ticket and there are plenty of people who are willing to be bought off the plane for significantly less than that. But in rare cases complying with their commitment to the high-status passenger could require them to involuntarily bump someone.
This is exactly the kind of problem that exists in the system: that some passengers are more equal than others. Thus the outrage. The "random" selection of passengers who were asked to deplane presumably did not include any of those more equal people.
A remarkable triumph of design and engineering. Pushing so much speed out of relatively simple mechanics and electronics was quite a feat.
Nowadays a good laser printer can print faster; 30 pages per minute is the equivalent of about 1,800 lines per minute. And that's only a midrange printer; a really high end printer can do double or more that speed. But it's not impressive in the same way, just as a TGV going 200 miles per hour doesn't have the same visceral impact as a steam engine going 100 miles per hour.
There are probably half a dozen more that I haven't seen. I'd like to see the technology survive for the sake of the films where it really adds something.
I also saw the three Hobbit films in HFR (high frame rate) 3D. (Like Avatar and Hugo, they were filmed natively in 3D.) I didn't cite them as examples because I'm not in love with them as films. Jackson tried to do too much with too little source material, he completely changed the tone of what is supposed to be a charming children's story, and he committed the cardinal sin of not trusting his audience when he decided to end part 2 with a cliffhanger. (Trying to make sure people came back for part 3 is the only justification for ending it in the middle of a battle rather than ending part 2 at the end of the battle, which would have been much more natural. If I were ever to show the trilogy at home I would fix that; I'd splice the battle scene together to run as a unit at the end of part 2 and take the bathroom and snack break after it was over.) But the 3D was effective at immersing you in the environment; it's a showcase for what the technology can do.
HFR and 3D are a synergistic combination; each enhances the sense of realism of the other. That was perhaps the reason that some people reacted so negatively to its use in The Hobbit. They don't want to be immersed quite that thoroughly in a movie experience, they prefer a bit of separation from it. Virtual reality movies, should they ever appear, will be a tough sell to people who feel that way.
The ones inside the ceiling are the elevation speakers for Atmos and DTS:X. If you don't have a high ceiling room that's the only way to get them in the right place.
That's why movies have been a popular destination for teens for many years. Private enough for making out, not private enough for going all the way, and there is an easy escape if things go wrong. (If the making out thing just isn't working for the two of you you can watch the movie, and if you have to escape from a situation where you are being uncomfortably pressured you can get up and go to the lobby.) They're still learning about their sexuality; they don't trust their dates or themselves enough to go to a more private place, and rightly so.
A movie could also be a suitable destination for a first or second date for adults for the same reasons.
Also, teens often don't have access to those more private and comfortable places. They still live with parents, and not all parents are understanding about having a date visit. They can't afford hotel rooms, even if they can find one that will take cash rather than insisting on a credit card. Making out in a car has its own discomforts, and urban teens may not even have access to a car.