I finally get what you mean by "update library" after reading other people's posts.
It doesn't work that way. You associate iTunes library with a folder. It's just not that way. My iTunes library has stuff in it from about a dozen folders. If you want something in the library, just drag it to the icon in iTunes. No, it won't automatically pick up your torrents you downloaded into a folder, I guess it's just not designed to.
I do say I wish thye'd concentrate on adding features for the customer and not the store/labels though.
What is this "no shortcut keys" thing people say". I can use both ctrl-key shortcut and alt-key shortcuts (and command-key shortcuts on Mac). What am I missing?
The handicapping feature won't cover the situation. And it requires a level of motor control and spatial awareness basic gamers don't have at all anyway.
It's a PS1 game, and it's great for varied skill levels. You basically throw rocks at each other, and the result is very affected by what rocks are available. So anyone can win.
Also, in Super Monkey Ball 2, Monkey Boxing (Monkey Fight) works similarly. You basically run around and button-mash each other. The other good news is that there are two other great games in there, and as her skill level rises, you might be able to play those too. Monkey Target is one of the best multiplayer games ever made.
"Today, Sony officially conceded defeat to the recent flurry of rumors and speculation, with Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun reporting the machine has been pushed back until November."
And then it says:
"When asked for a comment, a Sony Computer Entertainment America spokesperson only went on record saying that SCEI has not issued any official statement itself yet."
The delay is not official. There is no official statement.
They have working stuff for the video game end. You'll see tomorrow.
No, the dev systems currently used do not have BluRay drives. But whether the component output is rendered at high res or not has absolutely no impact on whether they can get drive mechanisms. It's basically a software issue, and that doesn't need to be nailed down until just before the device ships.
I was never an editor for a mag. But I can say as a consumer that if there is a hotly awaited game, and a magazine does a cover stating they have a scoop on it ("exclusive screenshots!"), then people will see the magazine and buy it. It will increase sales of that issue.
So more than just being cheap filler, previews can cause people to buy mags that they wouldn't otherwise buy. At least that's what I've noticed as a magazine buyer.
Yeah, the previews are usually useless fluff, but you've already bought the magazine, what are you going to do, return it?
So how are dropping SUV sales the thing that is killing GM again?
Just for the record again, I don't like SUVs. I'm not trying to say I like what GM is doing here, but it isn't hurting them nearly as badly as you make out. The real problem isn't the number of vehicles sold, but the profit per-vehicle.
I DirecTV and I have all that crap. Right now, it is 8:16AM, West Coast time on a Sunday. That's 11:16A East Coast time, so the day is started.
ESPN is airing SportsCenter (in HD on HD, although almost none of the clips are) ESPN2 is airing Inside Drag Racing (not in HD on HD channel) ESPNNews is of course airing recaps. ESPN Classic is airing the 2004 World Series. all 4 ESPN alternate feeds are off. ESPNU is showing Women's College Lacrosse.
So they're airing one recent sporting right now. And it's one just about no one cares about.
But hey, let's try later in the day. Let's try 4P, which is 7P Eastern. That's virtually prime time.
ESPN2 will be showing Tennis, the early rounds of the Pacific Life Open (not in HD) ESPN will be showing ESPNU Bracketology (in HD). ESPNNews will be looping. ESPN Classic will be showing 1994 Final Four highlights. All 4 ESPN alternate feeds will be off air. ESPNU will be showing ESPN Bracketology.
So, in virtual prime time, there wil be one recent sporting event being aired, early rounds of a minor tennis tournament. And there will be one thing in HD, a non-sporting event.
This doesn't count all the FSN channels, ESPN Deportes, SpeedTV, GOL or channels like Spike TV or OLN which are starting to pick up sporting events.
But still, it shows one thing. ESPN commands the highest fees for non-pay channels from operators because they used to have a lot of content that a young male might watch. That's really slipping now. And HD? When ESPN bought their new equipment (when SportsCenter went to HD) ESPN said they were hoping to produce 200 events in HD in the first year. That's 600 hours of HD sporting events across two channels in a year. It's near a sham. Even if ESPN exceeds their goal by 33%, that's 800 hours. That's 8 hours a week per channel, or roughly 6 events a week total.
I do agree completely about the low res film prints. I was going to post it myself before I saw your post. Not just dust and scratches, but the grain becomes quite noticeable in these prints and also many are just plain blurry, probably also due to the duplication process.
But, I saw Star Wars Ep 2 with the 1280x1024 system and it was dismal. I have no idea who they tested it with, but they must have been blind. Yes, there was no jitter/jump. That was nice. But the contrast wasn't great and the pixelation was not just noticeable but obvious. Any time there was a high contrast edge (like a title), it was obviously very very blocky. It also showed up in many bright areas (of which the movie doesn't have a lot). However, the rugs on the floors looked fantastic. There was no grain noise, so the gold/red rug patterns were beautiful.
In short, it was barely tolerable, and I cannot imagine what it was like to see a bright film like Minority Report on it.
I do realize that system is in the past now, but still, they are going to have to aim to do better than film, not almost as well or about as well. By your same argument, my TV here can render better than many theatres, and I don't have people answering cell phones in the middle nor overpriced snacks. The theaters/film companies will have to aim to do better if they want to keep the young, effects-oriented audience that they make most of their money from.
I'm disappointed to hear your comments about IMAX. They have good prints, they have the best projection system (rolling loop) already, and of course they have a massive amount of film in each frame. It'll be tough to even come close to IMAX's film spatial resolution, let alone the contrast available. I have to imagine that'll show up on the screen. But then again, I guess people go see 35mm blowups on IMAX screens, so you don't have to "max out" the format to get people in the seats.
People in marketing are often in conundrums trying to prove their marketing even works. Yet you have it nailed. People bought SUVs because of the strong marketing. That is far from a foregone conclusion.
Toyota's product mix is nice. The Prius specifically is in a class GM doesn't even bother to enter yet. But to compare the mpg of Toyota's cars versus GM SUVs is just stupid. Again, Toyota sells a TON of SUVs. How do theirs do compared to other's SUVs? And 4-cylinder trucks? Like GM doesn't sell 4-cylinder trucks? Note that GM sells 5 cylinder trucks in the same market space everyone else sells 6 cylinder and 8 cylinder trucks. Even the Hummer H3 is a 5 cylinder.
You crow about the Camry L4 fuel economy? How about the Pontiac G6 L4? It's not actually in the same car class, although the G6 has only 6% less space inside.
GM does well on MPG. If you want to crap on a company for making inefficient SUVs and trucks, start with Ford.
But either way, none of this at all proves the point that domestic concentration on SUV sales is the reason they aren't selling cars now. Porsche sells SUVs now! Try blaming GM's profit problems on that!
GM's problems primarily come from labor costs, especially stupid contracts they signed with the UAW over a dozen years ago. And they're not even alone. Suppliers everywhere are having major problems, VW is speaking of laying off 20,000 (1/5th of their European workforce!).
And Japan isn't excempt either. Nissan failed as a company and was bought and revived by Renault. Mazda failed as a company and was bought and revived by Ford. Isuzu is near death. Mitsubishi used to be the #2 auto maker in Japan and is now very near failure.
The auto industry is nearing some serious consolidation, and not just in the US.
Yeah, the time of big cars might end soon. That has NOTHING to do with the discussion at hand. The point was GM is making big-ass cars that no one wants and that is why they are in financial trouble. Except Toyota makes big-ass cars and does well at it.
Try to actually discuss the point at hand, please.
And you don't have to have a Diesel to use non-petrol fuels. Jeez.
Go check out that stupid car you point out. Wait until you see it. If you take everything off a car (like safety measures) and put in an anemic engine, you'll get great mpg. That doesn't meant it's a good car, that anyone will buy it or that it can even be legally offered for sale.
As to your second comment, it's completely non-responsive. I say again, Toyota makes a ton of SUVs. They didn't get into the market to lose money, they got into it to make money, just like GM and Ford.
You may not like SUVs, I don't either. But there are plenty of people who like them. GM sells them for the same reason as Toyota.
Note that a barrel of oil yields 19.2 gallons of gas and only 10 gallons of Diesel. Since Diesels don't get twice the mpg of gas cars, I'm not sure peak oil favors Diesels.
And as the owner of a German car, I'm pretty sure it doesn't favor German cars either. And additionally, CAFE regulations may not be as high as you'd hope, but I assure you GM is doing a lot better on the CAFE regulations than Mercedes and BMW are.
GM's fastest car as fast as M-B's and gets 16/26mpg too (0-60 3.7secs, 0-100 7.9 secs). It incurs no gas guzzler tax. M-Bs fastest? 13/17mpg (0-60 in 3.9secs, 0-100 in 8.2secs) and lots of guzzler tax.
It was the only thing Trio was ever successful with. They managed to buy the pilots of a few shows that were cancelled. They started with series that had short runs, like "Gun" or "Action". They later picked up a few shows that were only pilots (like "LA Confidential", "Lookwell!"). There were various reasons these shows didn't make it. Some were very good (like "Action").
They certainly got the idea from Moomba, a club in West Hollywood that used to run cancelled TV pilots and received a lot of notice for it. Specifically it contributed to the legends of "Lookwell!" (which starred Adam West and was written by Conan O' Brien and Robert Smigel) and "Heat Vision and Jack" (which was written by Ben Stiller and starred Jack Black and Owen Wilson).
These shows were easy to get rights to (except apparently Heat Vision and Jack), and cheap too, the shows were considered almost valueless. There was no market in syndication for shows with short runs, and DVD sales of TV shows were not a factor yet. But Trio was jumping in only just ahead of the curve, and suddenly there was a market for these shows and Trio simply couldn't afford to pick them up anymore on a shoestring budget. Then, DVD sales of TV shows became big, and it was all over.
Trio picked up a few other shows that were very cheap, like "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" and "The Ernie Kovacs Show" (which was brilliant), but really, they were done for by that point. The channel couldn't sustain any ratings, was dumped by DirecTV and it was over. NBC (who owns the channel) pulled the plug.
GM has an excellent record on fuel economy. They've only ever made one car that had a gas guzzler tax. They've never fell below the CAFE regulations, in fact have built up credits for doing better than necessary. There's a stat, it goes something like GM sells the most efficient or 2nd most efficent vehicle in over 85% of the car categories they compete in.
Now, I agree, they are making a lot of guzzling SUVs. But that's mainly because PEOPLE BUY THEM. It's the same reason Toyota makes 6 SUVs (5 if you don't count the Matrix). This is the same as the number of cars Toyota makes (5, 6 if you count the Matrix, 7 if you consider the Solara as a different car than the Camry).
If you're gonna say you don't like the domestic cars, fine. That's a personal decision. But your reasons don't seem valid given the product mixes of other, more successful companies. I would suggest there is a different reason.
Where you say Flint area, I would say Michigan area. Look at the head of the CAW's comments to GM (and GM's response closing plants there the next day). Canada is not the Flint area, and the UAW's foolishness isn't limited to Flint.
I'll agree it gets better as you get farther from Michigan. GM, Toyota and the UAW get along just fine at NUMMI, and in many southern states also.
I don't know your reference to when the UAW gave money away in order to keep jobs. I don't recall that happening. The mass relocation of plants was in the 80s and it wasn't to Lansing, it was out of state. In the 80s, the UAW pretended they were giving money, but it was GM that was giving money away, through the Jobs Bank program, and in reinvesting in Flint because the UAW said they would cooperate to make rules better (and did not).
I have no idea how you can say Ford and Chrysler never had problems with the UAW. The last time the UAW made contracts, they settled with Ford first (and took them to the cleaners) and that was (as is usual) used as the model for the GM contract that was signed right after.
As to the union shops, maybe I don't know enough about Western or Upper Michigan to speak for the whole state. I'll say every grocery in Southeast Lower Michigan is a union shop. My friends working in Meijer first told me of the union shop law, baggers and checkers were unionized. You do remember the unions versus Kroger in the 90s, right?
Pardon me? Does the UAW run the shops at the mall? They don't run the Teamsters! They don't run the various construction unions (like the IBEW). Why not ask a general contractor on a large construction project about union work rules and how they affect the work that is actually done?
How about the Screen Writer's Guild? SAG? Look at global rule one.
I've seen a lot of examples of unions in action. I have seen many bad ones, and no good ones yet. My experiences are very broad here, much more than 98% of the people on Slashdot. So I'm going to go with them.
I subscribe to this "unions=bad" "meme" because I grew up in Flint, Michigan (birthplace of the modern labor movement in the US) and experienced first hand unions driving the city into the ground and the UAW driving GM into the ground. You may have heard of this time and place in Michael Moore's "Roger and Me".
Every union struck every workplace as often as possible. In the mall, there would be at least one store which was being struck every time you went. The workers didn't seem to notice that a strike is a (legal) act of industrial sabotage, one which will hurt your employer and thus you also. It should be used as rarely as possible, or else you'll just put the company you work for out of business.
GM workers were apparently in need of new contracts, despite having work rules so lax that many would show up to work drunk, or not show up at all. Workers would clock each other in, then work their own job plus that of another, then next week the roles would reverse. This of course led to awful product quality. I do realize there was also a good dose of poor engineering going on at GM at the time too, but that wasn't why you'd get a car with the windshield wipers not properly attached or a wrench thrown into a closed space before it is welded shut.
It was during this time that the UAW agreed to changes which should have changed things so that the most desireable job occupied by the highest-paid workers wasn't a chip handler (floor sweeper). And so that it didn't take 13 people just to repair a press (the mechanical-expert repairman would not be allowed to even flip the switch to turn it back on afer he was done, that was against work rules, it required an electrical specialist). See, the union liked it when a press couldn't be repaired, because then the workers on the line still had to be paid, but didn't have to do any work. Because of this, often equipment would break on Friday, right when some services became unavailable until Monday. If the line was behind on production, the workers would sometimes be paid overtime to man the presses all weekend so that when it was repaired (which it couldn't be), the line could be restarted to catch up.
It was during this time that the UAW extracted the concessions from GM that are strangling them right now. Those are very very high-levels of expensive health care, and the "jobs bank" which pays workers 92% of their salary for up to two years to do nothing but show up at the union hall and not work. GM knew these would be expensive, but the UAW's side of the deal was to work toward a Jobs Classification Reduction to fix the problems I mentioned above. Well, as soon as the contract was signed, the UAW forgot about what they were supposed to do, and GM took it in the shorts badly. They know how much this would cost them in the future, and so they were trying to move out of union strongholds like Michigan and to the south. Meanwhile, Michael Moore reports why is GM closing plants in Michigan when they are profitable (on a current account basis)?
And as to the government not being involved? It's just not true at all. Unions are exempt from anti-trust laws so they can work across state lines and company lines to extract higher wages and benefits. Whereas employers cannot collude to maintain their end (see the rulings against major sports leagues, even though one of them is exempt). Also, some states (Michigan being one of them) have a "union shop" law that says that if a workplace is declared a union shop, you must join the union to work there whether you want to or not. Every grocery store is a union shop in Michigan.
Finally, if there actually is a strike, the unions employ thuggery and illegal sabotage. My grandfather personally beat up replacement workers (called "scabs" even though many aren't even replacement workers, just people who want to continue working) on the strike lines against Westinghouse in Ohio (of course, Ohio doesn't do nearly as much manufacturing now, and Westinghouse is destroyed as a manufacturing company and the last useful
What you list "most consumers need", that's already what Intel is providing. Core Duo is their desktop solution.
These new chips mentioned are server/workstation chips.
Also, I find your latency comments incongruous. Yes, P4 has an overly-long pipeline. But it's not user-perceiveable in terms of latency. It's only reflected in how the processor just doesn't perform as well as might be expected from the processor clocking and transistor count or heat production.
The 10+ seconds thing is more attributable to other factors, if it's even true. Most apps launch very quickly for me and besides, it's more related to the OS and how it uses the disk than the pipeline of the processor.
I'd like to see Intel improve their processors further, but they do seem to be on the right track now and away from NetBurst.
I wouldn't use one either, since then you have to open it even more often, as you point out.
What model is this that still comes with no external display?
In a way, I'm glad to hear one exists, since it seems like every phone is sprouting zillions of features, whether people need them or not.
Some phones can be opened easily with one hand, some cannot. When looking at a flip phone, it's one of the things I check before even considering it. I do consider flip phones, but I don't consider swivels, as they are a nightmare to open.
We don't have inspections, we just have emissions testing.
I assure you the place you go to isn't going to look twice at your bolt-ons. If you pass emissions, you're done, even if you have non-CARB parts on your car. If you don't pass emissions, I don't have any sympathy for you.
Compare this to east coast states, which inspect your car yearly or so for safety and compliance in ways other than emissions. They'll fail you for bald tires, cracked windshields, and I'm sure they'd check over your exhaust too if it was on the list.
And that's why I don't use flip phones (in addition to difficulty of opening them with one hand).
Every flip phone, including the RAZR is thicker than a candybar counterpart. Compare RAZR to SLVR for example. There is a simple reason for this, candybar phones have a single display, flip phones have to stack up two displays on top of each other when the unit is closed.
So flip phones are always thicker, and typically larger overall, simply due to the presence of these additional displays.
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I finally get what you mean by "update library" after reading other people's posts.
It doesn't work that way. You associate iTunes library with a folder. It's just not that way. My iTunes library has stuff in it from about a dozen folders. If you want something in the library, just drag it to the icon in iTunes. No, it won't automatically pick up your torrents you downloaded into a folder, I guess it's just not designed to.
I do say I wish thye'd concentrate on adding features for the customer and not the store/labels though.
What is this "no shortcut keys" thing people say". I can use both ctrl-key shortcut and alt-key shortcuts (and command-key shortcuts on Mac). What am I missing?
The handicapping feature won't cover the situation. And it requires a level of motor control and spatial awareness basic gamers don't have at all anyway.
Stay far away.
It's a PS1 game, and it's great for varied skill levels. You basically throw rocks at each other, and the result is very affected by what rocks are available. So anyone can win.
Also, in Super Monkey Ball 2, Monkey Boxing (Monkey Fight) works similarly. You basically run around and button-mash each other. The other good news is that there are two other great games in there, and as her skill level rises, you might be able to play those too. Monkey Target is one of the best multiplayer games ever made.
I own an Xbox 360, and I have to say "popularity" isn't a word that springs to mind.
Sales have been low (restricted supply), and the games are nearly all really bad, and they're $60!
360 has been a flop so far. Although I like the hardware by and large. Enjoyable experience overall.
The artical says official twice.
But the story says:
"Today, Sony officially conceded defeat to the recent flurry of rumors and speculation, with Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun reporting the machine has been pushed back until November."
And then it says:
"When asked for a comment, a Sony Computer Entertainment America spokesperson only went on record saying that SCEI has not issued any official statement itself yet."
The delay is not official. There is no official statement.
More rumor reported as fact.
They have working stuff for the video game end. You'll see tomorrow.
No, the dev systems currently used do not have BluRay drives. But whether the component output is rendered at high res or not has absolutely no impact on whether they can get drive mechanisms. It's basically a software issue, and that doesn't need to be nailed down until just before the device ships.
I did mention the vandalizing, right?
m embers-to-stop-vandalizing-competitors-cars/
http://www.leftlanenews.com/2006/03/14/uaw-tells-
This is not just Flint. And it isn't GM.
I was never an editor for a mag. But I can say as a consumer that if there is a hotly awaited game, and a magazine does a cover stating they have a scoop on it ("exclusive screenshots!"), then people will see the magazine and buy it. It will increase sales of that issue.
So more than just being cheap filler, previews can cause people to buy mags that they wouldn't otherwise buy. At least that's what I've noticed as a magazine buyer.
Yeah, the previews are usually useless fluff, but you've already bought the magazine, what are you going to do, return it?
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/03/03/chevy-tahoe-tak es-off-while-full-size-suv-sales-fall-in-february/
So how are dropping SUV sales the thing that is killing GM again?
Just for the record again, I don't like SUVs. I'm not trying to say I like what GM is doing here, but it isn't hurting them nearly as badly as you make out. The real problem isn't the number of vehicles sold, but the profit per-vehicle.
It's not a lot of sports.
I DirecTV and I have all that crap. Right now, it is 8:16AM, West Coast time on a Sunday. That's 11:16A East Coast time, so the day is started.
ESPN is airing SportsCenter (in HD on HD, although almost none of the clips are)
ESPN2 is airing Inside Drag Racing (not in HD on HD channel)
ESPNNews is of course airing recaps.
ESPN Classic is airing the 2004 World Series.
all 4 ESPN alternate feeds are off.
ESPNU is showing Women's College Lacrosse.
So they're airing one recent sporting right now. And it's one just about no one cares about.
But hey, let's try later in the day. Let's try 4P, which is 7P Eastern. That's virtually prime time.
ESPN2 will be showing Tennis, the early rounds of the Pacific Life Open (not in HD)
ESPN will be showing ESPNU Bracketology (in HD).
ESPNNews will be looping.
ESPN Classic will be showing 1994 Final Four highlights.
All 4 ESPN alternate feeds will be off air.
ESPNU will be showing ESPN Bracketology.
So, in virtual prime time, there wil be one recent sporting event being aired, early rounds of a minor tennis tournament. And there will be one thing in HD, a non-sporting event.
This doesn't count all the FSN channels, ESPN Deportes, SpeedTV, GOL or channels like Spike TV or OLN which are starting to pick up sporting events.
But still, it shows one thing. ESPN commands the highest fees for non-pay channels from operators because they used to have a lot of content that a young male might watch. That's really slipping now. And HD? When ESPN bought their new equipment (when SportsCenter went to HD) ESPN said they were hoping to produce 200 events in HD in the first year. That's 600 hours of HD sporting events across two channels in a year. It's near a sham. Even if ESPN exceeds their goal by 33%, that's 800 hours. That's 8 hours a week per channel, or roughly 6 events a week total.
I do agree completely about the low res film prints. I was going to post it myself before I saw your post. Not just dust and scratches, but the grain becomes quite noticeable in these prints and also many are just plain blurry, probably also due to the duplication process.
But, I saw Star Wars Ep 2 with the 1280x1024 system and it was dismal. I have no idea who they tested it with, but they must have been blind. Yes, there was no jitter/jump. That was nice. But the contrast wasn't great and the pixelation was not just noticeable but obvious. Any time there was a high contrast edge (like a title), it was obviously very very blocky. It also showed up in many bright areas (of which the movie doesn't have a lot). However, the rugs on the floors looked fantastic. There was no grain noise, so the gold/red rug patterns were beautiful.
In short, it was barely tolerable, and I cannot imagine what it was like to see a bright film like Minority Report on it.
I do realize that system is in the past now, but still, they are going to have to aim to do better than film, not almost as well or about as well. By your same argument, my TV here can render better than many theatres, and I don't have people answering cell phones in the middle nor overpriced snacks. The theaters/film companies will have to aim to do better if they want to keep the young, effects-oriented audience that they make most of their money from.
I'm disappointed to hear your comments about IMAX. They have good prints, they have the best projection system (rolling loop) already, and of course they have a massive amount of film in each frame. It'll be tough to even come close to IMAX's film spatial resolution, let alone the contrast available. I have to imagine that'll show up on the screen. But then again, I guess people go see 35mm blowups on IMAX screens, so you don't have to "max out" the format to get people in the seats.
People in marketing are often in conundrums trying to prove their marketing even works. Yet you have it nailed. People bought SUVs because of the strong marketing. That is far from a foregone conclusion.
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Toyota's product mix is nice. The Prius specifically is in a class GM doesn't even bother to enter yet. But to compare the mpg of Toyota's cars versus GM SUVs is just stupid. Again, Toyota sells a TON of SUVs. How do theirs do compared to other's SUVs? And 4-cylinder trucks? Like GM doesn't sell 4-cylinder trucks? Note that GM sells 5 cylinder trucks in the same market space everyone else sells 6 cylinder and 8 cylinder trucks. Even the Hummer H3 is a 5 cylinder.
You crow about the Camry L4 fuel economy? How about the Pontiac G6 L4? It's not actually in the same car class, although the G6 has only 6% less space inside.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/21848.sht
GM does well on MPG. If you want to crap on a company for making inefficient SUVs and trucks, start with Ford.
But either way, none of this at all proves the point that domestic concentration on SUV sales is the reason they aren't selling cars now. Porsche sells SUVs now! Try blaming GM's profit problems on that!
GM's problems primarily come from labor costs, especially stupid contracts they signed with the UAW over a dozen years ago. And they're not even alone. Suppliers everywhere are having major problems, VW is speaking of laying off 20,000 (1/5th of their European workforce!).
And Japan isn't excempt either. Nissan failed as a company and was bought and revived by Renault. Mazda failed as a company and was bought and revived by Ford. Isuzu is near death. Mitsubishi used to be the #2 auto maker in Japan and is now very near failure.
The auto industry is nearing some serious consolidation, and not just in the US.
Yeah, the time of big cars might end soon. That has NOTHING to do with the discussion at hand. The point was GM is making big-ass cars that no one wants and that is why they are in financial trouble. Except Toyota makes big-ass cars and does well at it.
Try to actually discuss the point at hand, please.
And you don't have to have a Diesel to use non-petrol fuels. Jeez.
Go check out that stupid car you point out. Wait until you see it. If you take everything off a car (like safety measures) and put in an anemic engine, you'll get great mpg. That doesn't meant it's a good car, that anyone will buy it or that it can even be legally offered for sale.
As to your second comment, it's completely non-responsive. I say again, Toyota makes a ton of SUVs. They didn't get into the market to lose money, they got into it to make money, just like GM and Ford.
You may not like SUVs, I don't either. But there are plenty of people who like them. GM sells them for the same reason as Toyota.
Note that a barrel of oil yields 19.2 gallons of gas and only 10 gallons of Diesel. Since Diesels don't get twice the mpg of gas cars, I'm not sure peak oil favors Diesels.
And as the owner of a German car, I'm pretty sure it doesn't favor German cars either. And additionally, CAFE regulations may not be as high as you'd hope, but I assure you GM is doing a lot better on the CAFE regulations than Mercedes and BMW are.
GM's fastest car as fast as M-B's and gets 16/26mpg too (0-60 3.7secs, 0-100 7.9 secs). It incurs no gas guzzler tax. M-Bs fastest? 13/17mpg (0-60 in 3.9secs, 0-100 in 8.2secs) and lots of guzzler tax.
Or at least wryly funny.
. html) and "The Ocho".
Stupid ESPN. I can't believe there are TWO ESPN HD channels. They barely have enough real content for one channel, let alone HD content.
World's Strongest Man, Lumberjack contests, etc. Brings to mind Letterman's old "Dog Hockey" joke (http://www.ehumorcentral.com/Directory/Jokes/731
It was the only thing Trio was ever successful with. They managed to buy the pilots of a few shows that were cancelled. They started with series that had short runs, like "Gun" or "Action". They later picked up a few shows that were only pilots (like "LA Confidential", "Lookwell!"). There were various reasons these shows didn't make it. Some were very good (like "Action").
They certainly got the idea from Moomba, a club in West Hollywood that used to run cancelled TV pilots and received a lot of notice for it. Specifically it contributed to the legends of "Lookwell!" (which starred Adam West and was written by Conan O' Brien and Robert Smigel) and "Heat Vision and Jack" (which was written by Ben Stiller and starred Jack Black and Owen Wilson).
These shows were easy to get rights to (except apparently Heat Vision and Jack), and cheap too, the shows were considered almost valueless. There was no market in syndication for shows with short runs, and DVD sales of TV shows were not a factor yet. But Trio was jumping in only just ahead of the curve, and suddenly there was a market for these shows and Trio simply couldn't afford to pick them up anymore on a shoestring budget. Then, DVD sales of TV shows became big, and it was all over.
Trio picked up a few other shows that were very cheap, like "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" and "The Ernie Kovacs Show" (which was brilliant), but really, they were done for by that point. The channel couldn't sustain any ratings, was dumped by DirecTV and it was over. NBC (who owns the channel) pulled the plug.
If you're gonna go on a rant, at least be right.
GM has an excellent record on fuel economy. They've only ever made one car that had a gas guzzler tax. They've never fell below the CAFE regulations, in fact have built up credits for doing better than necessary. There's a stat, it goes something like GM sells the most efficient or 2nd most efficent vehicle in over 85% of the car categories they compete in.
Now, I agree, they are making a lot of guzzling SUVs. But that's mainly because PEOPLE BUY THEM. It's the same reason Toyota makes 6 SUVs (5 if you don't count the Matrix). This is the same as the number of cars Toyota makes (5, 6 if you count the Matrix, 7 if you consider the Solara as a different car than the Camry).
If you're gonna say you don't like the domestic cars, fine. That's a personal decision. But your reasons don't seem valid given the product mixes of other, more successful companies. I would suggest there is a different reason.
Where you say Flint area, I would say Michigan area. Look at the head of the CAW's comments to GM (and GM's response closing plants there the next day). Canada is not the Flint area, and the UAW's foolishness isn't limited to Flint.
I'll agree it gets better as you get farther from Michigan. GM, Toyota and the UAW get along just fine at NUMMI, and in many southern states also.
I don't know your reference to when the UAW gave money away in order to keep jobs. I don't recall that happening. The mass relocation of plants was in the 80s and it wasn't to Lansing, it was out of state. In the 80s, the UAW pretended they were giving money, but it was GM that was giving money away, through the Jobs Bank program, and in reinvesting in Flint because the UAW said they would cooperate to make rules better (and did not).
I have no idea how you can say Ford and Chrysler never had problems with the UAW. The last time the UAW made contracts, they settled with Ford first (and took them to the cleaners) and that was (as is usual) used as the model for the GM contract that was signed right after.
As to the union shops, maybe I don't know enough about Western or Upper Michigan to speak for the whole state. I'll say every grocery in Southeast Lower Michigan is a union shop. My friends working in Meijer first told me of the union shop law, baggers and checkers were unionized. You do remember the unions versus Kroger in the 90s, right?
Pardon me? Does the UAW run the shops at the mall? They don't run the Teamsters! They don't run the various construction unions (like the IBEW). Why not ask a general contractor on a large construction project about union work rules and how they affect the work that is actually done?
How about the Screen Writer's Guild? SAG? Look at global rule one.
I've seen a lot of examples of unions in action. I have seen many bad ones, and no good ones yet. My experiences are very broad here, much more than 98% of the people on Slashdot. So I'm going to go with them.
Because it might porentially subvert their DRMs in Vista. They don't want any competing rootkits on machines out there.
I subscribe to this "unions=bad" "meme" because I grew up in Flint, Michigan (birthplace of the modern labor movement in the US) and experienced first hand unions driving the city into the ground and the UAW driving GM into the ground. You may have heard of this time and place in Michael Moore's "Roger and Me".
Every union struck every workplace as often as possible. In the mall, there would be at least one store which was being struck every time you went. The workers didn't seem to notice that a strike is a (legal) act of industrial sabotage, one which will hurt your employer and thus you also. It should be used as rarely as possible, or else you'll just put the company you work for out of business.
GM workers were apparently in need of new contracts, despite having work rules so lax that many would show up to work drunk, or not show up at all. Workers would clock each other in, then work their own job plus that of another, then next week the roles would reverse. This of course led to awful product quality. I do realize there was also a good dose of poor engineering going on at GM at the time too, but that wasn't why you'd get a car with the windshield wipers not properly attached or a wrench thrown into a closed space before it is welded shut.
It was during this time that the UAW agreed to changes which should have changed things so that the most desireable job occupied by the highest-paid workers wasn't a chip handler (floor sweeper). And so that it didn't take 13 people just to repair a press (the mechanical-expert repairman would not be allowed to even flip the switch to turn it back on afer he was done, that was against work rules, it required an electrical specialist). See, the union liked it when a press couldn't be repaired, because then the workers on the line still had to be paid, but didn't have to do any work. Because of this, often equipment would break on Friday, right when some services became unavailable until Monday. If the line was behind on production, the workers would sometimes be paid overtime to man the presses all weekend so that when it was repaired (which it couldn't be), the line could be restarted to catch up.
It was during this time that the UAW extracted the concessions from GM that are strangling them right now. Those are very very high-levels of expensive health care, and the "jobs bank" which pays workers 92% of their salary for up to two years to do nothing but show up at the union hall and not work. GM knew these would be expensive, but the UAW's side of the deal was to work toward a Jobs Classification Reduction to fix the problems I mentioned above. Well, as soon as the contract was signed, the UAW forgot about what they were supposed to do, and GM took it in the shorts badly. They know how much this would cost them in the future, and so they were trying to move out of union strongholds like Michigan and to the south. Meanwhile, Michael Moore reports why is GM closing plants in Michigan when they are profitable (on a current account basis)?
And as to the government not being involved? It's just not true at all. Unions are exempt from anti-trust laws so they can work across state lines and company lines to extract higher wages and benefits. Whereas employers cannot collude to maintain their end (see the rulings against major sports leagues, even though one of them is exempt). Also, some states (Michigan being one of them) have a "union shop" law that says that if a workplace is declared a union shop, you must join the union to work there whether you want to or not. Every grocery store is a union shop in Michigan.
Finally, if there actually is a strike, the unions employ thuggery and illegal sabotage. My grandfather personally beat up replacement workers (called "scabs" even though many aren't even replacement workers, just people who want to continue working) on the strike lines against Westinghouse in Ohio (of course, Ohio doesn't do nearly as much manufacturing now, and Westinghouse is destroyed as a manufacturing company and the last useful
What you list "most consumers need", that's already what Intel is providing. Core Duo is their desktop solution.
These new chips mentioned are server/workstation chips.
Also, I find your latency comments incongruous. Yes, P4 has an overly-long pipeline. But it's not user-perceiveable in terms of latency. It's only reflected in how the processor just doesn't perform as well as might be expected from the processor clocking and transistor count or heat production.
The 10+ seconds thing is more attributable to other factors, if it's even true. Most apps launch very quickly for me and besides, it's more related to the OS and how it uses the disk than the pipeline of the processor.
I'd like to see Intel improve their processors further, but they do seem to be on the right track now and away from NetBurst.
I wouldn't use one either, since then you have to open it even more often, as you point out.
What model is this that still comes with no external display?
In a way, I'm glad to hear one exists, since it seems like every phone is sprouting zillions of features, whether people need them or not.
Some phones can be opened easily with one hand, some cannot. When looking at a flip phone, it's one of the things I check before even considering it. I do consider flip phones, but I don't consider swivels, as they are a nightmare to open.
I've lived in San Jose, CA for 10 years.
We don't have inspections, we just have emissions testing.
I assure you the place you go to isn't going to look twice at your bolt-ons. If you pass emissions, you're done, even if you have non-CARB parts on your car. If you don't pass emissions, I don't have any sympathy for you.
Compare this to east coast states, which inspect your car yearly or so for safety and compliance in ways other than emissions. They'll fail you for bald tires, cracked windshields, and I'm sure they'd check over your exhaust too if it was on the list.
And that's why I don't use flip phones (in addition to difficulty of opening them with one hand).
Every flip phone, including the RAZR is thicker than a candybar counterpart. Compare RAZR to SLVR for example. There is a simple reason for this, candybar phones have a single display, flip phones have to stack up two displays on top of each other when the unit is closed.
So flip phones are always thicker, and typically larger overall, simply due to the presence of these additional displays.