Recent Comments:
Satellite radio: Looking for a few good customers, anybody?
Autoblog
Jan 28th 2008 10:53AM The talk shows I want are on XM, not on Sirius and not on my local AM/FM stations. So I am staying with XM and if the merger goes through and my shows get booted, then I am gone.
Forget prospects about future sales, the two satrad companies need to worry about keeping their existing customers.
But no matter what happens, I am not going back to AM/FM. I haven't listened to local radio in more than a year now and haven't missed it once. Radio likes to play up the idea that they're super vital and ultra important and God forbid you try to drive some place without getting the traffic on the fives. Bull.
I'm not going back to that fraud. The only things vital and urgent are playing the endless commercials.
Hyundai back in the game, will air ads during Super Bowl
Autoblog
Jan 19th 2008 3:34PM Whatever they do, I hope the ads are better than the recent US Hyundai ads. From car-mounted shots with absolutely awful amounts of camera shake and bounce (hint: they DO make mounts to deal with this, but Hyundai doesn't use them) to the just insipid writing of the Duh campaign, to using what's his name Hermann as the voice over. Just bad.
Hermann's other claim to fame is voicing the terrible Dodge ads from a few years ago, when Dodge started looking with envy at the interiors used in recycled coffee cups. In other words, his voice is tied to crap cars going nowhere.
Honda's Rose Parade float a transformer
Autoblog
Jan 1st 2008 8:39PM Obviously the point of this flew over some heads... the float ties together three different areas of Honda.
The Ridgeline vehicle, the Asimo robot, and Honda Aviation with their new HondaJet product, which is thankfully not a transforming stunt car.
Honda's image advertising often plays up the wide range of things they call Honda, from snowblowers to lawnmowers, to F-1 cars, to street cars, robots, and now a jet. The float follows that pattern.
Rumor: CompUSA going out of business in January
Engadget
Dec 6th 2007 5:12AM California is a Frys stronghold. CompUSA has mostly retreated from areas where they had to compete with Frys.
To make it worse, Frys has recently pushed out more stores across the country and those stores draw not just from the surrounding ~20 miles, but from the surrounding ~200 miles or more. So Frys is able to get away with one or two stores in an area and in the process wipe out all the nearby CompUSAs. Example: Atlanta. Frys opened one store and CompUSA suffered major damage. Frys opened a second Atlanta store and CompUSA totally imploded. Closed up. Gone.
Oddly enough, the Frys store, a CompUSA and a Micro Center store were all within a mile or so. CompUSA collapsed but the Micro Center is doing fine. They choose to stay focused on computers and the like rather than go all CE like CompUSA or CE plus appliances, washing machines, books, office paper AND computers like Frys. If you stick with your niche, customers will come to the store. If they don't know WHAT you sell any more or why they should shop your store versus the other guy, then they have no reason to come back.
My last CompUSA purchase was Windows Vista. Half price. I think I paid too much.
Seven cool features of Leopard that might get stubborn friends to upgrade
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
Nov 17th 2007 1:22AM Add me to the list of people with SMB problems. Leopard totally broke what had been working under Tiger. Shares would not show up automatically. When they did show up, copying files off the network shares was like downloading files over dial-up from 15 years ago. Except I think my 14.4 modem was faster.
I fought with Leopard for a solid day before it occurred to me that I shouldn't HAVE to fight with my OS; that's a Windows thing. That's what I wanted to avoid by getting a Mac in the first place.
So I trashed Leopard and put Super-Duped Tiger back in place and wow, everything worked again. Imagine that! Networks shares that work. Network file copying at ethernet speed like it should be. SuperDuper made it a snap to go back and that's really the only positive thing I have to say about Leopard.
I'll try Leopard again when the live beta is done, mid 2008 at this rate.
So bad, I ran screaming back to my Super Duper backup of Tiger.
The
Boeing Laser Avenger: Humvee with frikkin' laser on its head
Autoblog
Nov 17th 2007 12:23AM US action: deploy an expensive high-tech laser device mounted on a Humvee. "we're gonna get them bad guys!" Cost: priceless
Insurgent/anyone else response: Dig a big pot hole and wait for the top-heavy humvee to flip and crash. "ha ha ha ha!" Cost: free.
Coby recalls 12,000 DVD boomboxes due to fire hazard
Engadget
Nov 10th 2007 6:21AM What did anyone expect from a brand that was started because they thought the name "Coby" looked enough like Sony, that they might actually fool people into buying their stuff instead of the name brand.
Which is not to say Sony's stuff is all that great, but it's usually better than Coby's.
Coby's only claim to fame is that they're often the cheapest brand of junk electronics in stores like Family Dollar or Dollar General or Woolworths, but lately they've increased their price points so much that the stores that birthed them no longer even carry the brand. Now Coby is showing up in places like Target but it's only because the price points went up, not because the products are any better than the old $14.99 walkman clones Coby used to sell, the ones with headphones that made you deaf and hurt your head, before they just broke and fell off.
Il Rumormillo: Schumacher to unveil Ferrari FXX Evoluzione this weekend
Autoblog
Oct 24th 2007 1:00AM FXX, now with included extra better Fire Suppression system!
I kid.
Spyker F1 renamed Force India for 2008
Autoblog
Oct 23rd 2007 4:47AM F-1 Force India whatever. I'm going to call them Fifi, as in Fido the dog and Fifi the cat.
Predictable quote: "... And on the final row, both of the Fifi cars as usual."
"A car's gone off! He'll be losing a lot of time with that. Oh it's a Fifi, nevermind. He's already three laps down."
I like Fifi as a nickname. They're just gonna be roadkill anyway.
Brand new VW R32 catches on fire
Autoblog
Oct 20th 2007 1:29AM VW's catch on fire???? Well, lets see... the dashboard my mother's Quantum -predecessor to the Passat- once caught on fire while I was driving down the road at 70.
Long story short, the radio wiring harness totally shorted out and bypassed the fuses, so the wiring overloaded and melted all the insulation.
That car had electric windows, so the electrics packed up as soon as the short began. No power left to roll down a window. So there I am going down the road and I can't even let the smoke out so I can see and I am choking and dying from the fumes. (Think airplane cockpit fire.)
I had to drive holding the door open and just forced my way over to the left shoulder. Miracle I didn't hit anyone. I think the plume of smoke out the back was a clue that people should get out of my way.
Got the car stopped. Got the fire out, yanked out the offending wiring and went home. And then I got a fire extinguisher and now carry one in every car.
The next car I bought was a Jetta. It had problems too but wiring wasn't one of them. Plus it had manual windows. And yes, a fire extinguisher. And an oil drip pan, and a set of tools. And a AAA card. argh.
