Just wondering….

Dear iPhone fanboi and fangrl,

If you are in Canada, the US, New Zealand or pretty much anywhere in the world.

Please accept the sad reality that you are a sheep to be fleeced. I understand that it is not a wonderful situation. But please learn that you made the wool (money) just to give to the phone company and Apple.

And just remember that next year, you will be fleeced next year. And please not bleat next year again.

If you could practice self-restraint and simply refuse to buy when you are being treated like sheep to be a fleeced — then you would be treated better.

Until then please do not complain when the man with the shearers comes a’callin’

O.k.?

Do have a nice day!

Mattel is worth more than GM:

GM’s current market value is smaller than that of Mattel Inc., maker of Matchbox cars, and a 10th of what it was in 2000. A Merrill Lynch analyst said [July 2, 2008] that a GM “bankruptcy is not impossible if the market continues to deteriorate.” Merrill downgraded the stock to “underperform” from “buy.” The price was the lowest since 1954 adjusted for splits.

Irony.

Continuing:

GM may bring the production version of the Chevrolet Beat to the U.S., people familiar with the plan said. The car, which would normally be reserved for markets such as Asia and Latin America, gets as much as 40 miles a gallon, a fuel efficiency topped in the U.S. only by hybrids.

Besides the Beat, GM is weighing a list of options for refocusing its auto lineup on fuel efficiency rather than performance. They include the U.S. introduction of a small pickup popular in Latin America and an expansion of the number of versions of the Volt plug-in electric car, the people said.

GM is also trying to increase production and speed up availability of the successor to the Chevy Cobalt sedan and develop a fuel-efficient alternative to the Cadillac Escalade sport-utility vehicle, they said.

About flippin’ time!

I want to quote practically the entire article it is just so funny!

Bryan Carisone, a heating and air-conditioning contractor in Raritan, N.J., “absolutely loves” his new GMC Denali XL. But in June, one week after he bought it, he pulled into a station on a near-empty tank and watched the total climb higher and higher — to $109.

“It just about killed me,” Mr. Carisone said.

Well that’s love for you … a fickle beast!

For decades, the $100 barrel stood as a hypothetical outlier in doom-and-gloom conversations about future oil prices. And nobody could even imagine an American family paying $100 to fill the tank.

“Nobody”? Oh, I guess you just meant people like DEMOCRAT Rep. John “Denial” Dingell (D-MI) and Former Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). But who knows maybe the automobile industry will accept reality?

But the future is here. Oil passed $100 a barrel in January and now seems headed toward $150 a barrel. Gasoline prices surpassed $4 a gallon on June 8, stalled for a while, and have been rising again in recent days, setting a record Saturday.

Well that’s what happens with the dollar in the toilet. China and India becoming economic powerhouses with lots of cars. Living the American dream!

By late spring, owners of pickups and sport utility vehicles with 30-gallon tanks, like the Cadillac Escalade ESV and Chevrolet Suburban, started paying $100 or more to fill a near-empty tank. As gas prices continue to rise — the national average stood at about $4.10 a gallon Saturday — membership in the triple-digit club is growing. Now, even not-so-gargantuan Toyota Land Cruisers and GMC Yukons can cost $100 to fill up.

But still incredibly oversized.

During the first five months of 2008, about 11 percent of American drivers said they bought 24 gallons or more at their last fill-up, according to a survey of 81,000 drivers by the NPD Group, a market research firm — which at today’s prices would place many of them at or around $100.

Just think what it is going to look like with case at $7/gallon. Oh By the way — In England drivers pay $12-$15/gallon.

For people who love their big vehicles, the pain is acute.

Good. Probably about as acute as the pain the rest of us feel when we get hit by these overstuffed monsters.

Members of the Chevy Avalanche Fan Club of North America prize the Avalanche, a large sport utility vehicle, for its versatility, including a rear cab wall that slides forward for a larger pickup bed or backward for more passenger room.

With the extra pollution option included at no additional charge!

But the Avalanche also has a 31-gallon tank, which would cost $127 to fill at Saturday’s national average price. Even the truck’s most dedicated fans find that galling. David H. Obelcz, who founded the club in 2002 and is still a member of the board, sold his Avalanche because he could not afford gasoline for it.

Reality sucks. Oh I am sorry - might those treehuggers have been right? Who hates CAFE now?
Oh the sweet, sweet, delicious irony!

Thirty members of the fan club’s Arizona chapter used to attend off-roading and other events three times a month. But now that Avalanche owners pay more than $100 per tank, the club is lucky to attract 10 members once every two months, said Eric Tolliver, a chapter leader.

So does that mean you are not going to be tearing up BLM lands as much — I got to love that!

Eric Laugen, a firefighter in Seattle, is administrator of the Chevy Avalanche Fan Club of North America. For a trip to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, he wanted to drive his truck because it has enough room for his fishing and camera gear, as well as space in the back to sleep. But he rode his motorcycle instead. That means pitching a tent every night, and no fishing.

“I looked at how much gas would cost in the Avalanche. It just doesn’t make sense anymore.”

Did it ever?

Hummer clubs are hurting, too. In Nebraska, Ric Hines of the Omaha Hummer Owner Group — known as Omahog — stopped doing off-road trips this summer and started riding his recumbent bicycle instead.

“Omahog” — what an appropriate name. “Hog” as in “hogging resource for yourself without caring about others”. But all the way to a bicycle — not bad!

Mark R. Price, founder of the Illiana Hummer Club in the Chicago area, owns three Hummer H1s, which get about eight miles per gallon. “A lot of our members won’t travel 70 miles just to support a parade anymore,” Mr. Price said. “People wait for something a little closer.”

Shit man - sell one of the H1-s. Bet the scrap metal value of those would get you at least 2-3 gallons of gas for the other 2 Hummers.

Families that were accustomed to the convenience of sport utility vehicles are having to cut back as well. Colleen Hammond of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, loves packing her three kids and all their soccer gear into her 2000 GMC Yukon XL. But she hates paying $160 to fill the 38.5-gallon tank.

Newsflash-lady. It doesn’t it is still over $100/tank. Why don’t you just get something reasonable with a roof rack?

Last month, she parked the Yukon in her driveway and borrowed her friend’s Toyota Land Cruiser.

Her friend should just make Colleen sell the Yukon XL and buy the Land Cruiser. Driving is more than just gas. Its tires, insurance, oil, and maintenance. Maybe Colleen could follow Angela Eversole or Kelli Stille’s fine example?

Steve Burtch bought a Dodge Ram truck last year, when gas cost $3.75, because he thought gas prices had peaked and would start coming down. Instead, he pumped his first $100 tank in June. “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to keep this up,” said Mr. Burtch, 43, who lives in Marion, Ohio.

ROTFL. Tough it out. Be a man! Who’s the boss? You or the oil companies? Mano a mano in the ring, you can do it! Don’t quit now!

Edmunds.com compiled sales data showing that in the last seven model years, Americans have bought 25.4 million vehicles with tanks 24 gallons or larger — the point at which three figures is now a real possibility. A few big trucks and sport utility vehicles have tanks exceeding 30 gallons.

What is the scrap-metal value of those big boys?

But people who try to pump $100 worth of gas often find that they cannot, since most pumps that take credit cards shut off at $75 to prevent someone with insufficient funds or a stolen credit card from running off with gas. In addition, some older pumps still are not capable of registering triple-digit bills.

And just a few months ago we were talking about older pumps (or should we call them “wallet siphons”), not being able to handle gas priced above $3.99/gallon.

“The bill was $104.98, which was a real shock,” said Mr. Chamberlain, 71, of Marion, Ohio. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

Bet you vote Republican and thought the Iraq War would give you more of the sweet, sweet, light sweet crude-didn’t you?

Quite simply BART-to-SFO has major fatal, permanent flaws:

1. route time is not competitive. During the early morning rush taking a Baby Bullet train from points south of Millbrae to 4th and King with a transfer to Muni is faster. I did this for a year before Baby Bullet service started. Also there are express buses that take Caltrain riders to places like Fort Mason. Caltrain-to-Muni is more of a timed transfer. Caltrain-to-BART does not offer a timed connection and there is a lot of sitting around waiting.
2. Transferring to BART is more expensive. Caltrain-Muni combination offers monthly pass discount. BART has no monthly pass.
3. Getting to the airport is now much harder than before BART.

To expand on the last point on the difficulty of getting to SFO now. Lets compare the before and after picture:

Before BART:

1. Get off Caltrain at Millbrae
2. Get on (free) bus waiting for each Caltrain. The bus waited for you to shlep your luggage into the bus.
3. Passengers were dropped directly off at their airline terminal.
4. Unload bus.

Passengers did not have to go up and down at all with luggage and screaming kids.

Compare that to now:

1. Get off Caltrain at Millbrae.
2. Drag luggage (and kids!) to elevator #1.
3. Wait for elevator #1.
4. Load luggage into the elevator #1. (”Stop pushing the buttons!”)
5. Unload elevator #1
6. Buy BART ticket. (Hassle with change and bills)
7. Drag luggage through BART gate #1.
8. Drag luggage to elevator #2.
9. Wait for elevator #2.
10. Load luggage into the elevator #2. (”I said, ‘Stop pushing the buttons’, Rose!”)
11. Unload elevator #2
12. Drag luggage to BART train #1.
13. Wait for doors.
14. Drag luggage into BART train #1.
15. Unload luggage from BART train #1 at San Bruno.
16. Drag luggage to BART train #2. (less than a minute to do this with kids..go,go,go!) (damn missed it!)
17. (wait 15 min for next train)
18. Wait for doors.
19. Drag luggage into BART train #2.
20. Unload luggage from BART train #2 (at SFO) ( “Are we there yet!”)
21. Drag luggage through BART gate #2.
22. Drag luggage to elevator #3.
23. Wait for elevator #3.
24. Load luggage into the elevator #3. (”I said, ‘Stop pushing the buttons’!”)
25. Unload elevator #3 (”Honey, are you wearing deodorant?”)
26. Drag luggage to SFO people mover (Do we have the Xmas spirit yet?)
27. Wait for doors.
28. Drag luggage into SFO people mover.
29. Unload luggage from SFO people mover.
30. Drag luggage to elevator #4.
31. Wait for elevator #4.
32. Load luggage into the elevator #4. (”I said, ‘Stop pushing the buttons’!”)
33. Unload elevator #4

Update: This is what “stupid” looks like on a map:

View Larger Map

Be sure to thank Quentin Kopp and Mike Nevin the people responsible for the mess.

Any questions?

She heard this story and she shook her head and said, “Where do people find the time?” That was her question. And I just kind of snapped. And I said, “No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you’ve been masking for 50 years.”

So how big is that surplus? So if you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project–every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in–that represents something like the cumulation of 100 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin Wattenberg at IBM; it’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it’s the right order of magnitude, about 100 million hours of thought.

And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that’s 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television. Or put still another way, in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads. This is a pretty big surplus. People asking, “Where do they find the time?” when they’re looking at things like Wikipedia don’t understand how tiny that entire project is, as a carve-out of this asset that’s finally being dragged into what Tim calls an architecture of participation.

Now, the interesting thing about a surplus like that is that society doesn’t know what to do with it at first–hence the gin, hence the sitcoms. Because if people knew what to do with a surplus with reference to the existing social institutions, then it wouldn’t be a surplus, would it? It’s precisely when no one has any idea how to deploy something that people have to start experimenting with it, in order for the surplus to get integrated, and the course of that integration can transform society (…)

So that’s the answer to the question, “Where do they find the time?” Or, rather, that’s the numerical answer. But beneath that question was another thought, this one not a question but an observation. In this same conversation with the TV producer I was talking about World of Warcraft guilds, and as I was talking, I could sort of see what she was thinking: “Losers. Grown men sitting in their basement pretending to be elves.”

At least they’re doing something.

Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan’s Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don’t? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up. And every half-hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn’t posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list. Now I had an ironclad excuse for not doing those things, which is none of those things existed then. I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option. Now it’s not, and that’s the big surprise. However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it’s worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter.

And I’m willing to raise that to a general principle. It’s better to do something than to do nothing. Even lolcats, even cute pictures of kittens made even cuter with the addition of cute captions, hold out an invitation to participation. When you see a lolcat, one of the things it says to the viewer is, “If you have some sans-serif fonts on your computer, you can play this game, too.” And that’s message–I can do that, too–is a big change.(…)

And this is the other thing about the size of the cognitive surplus we’re talking about. It’s so large that even a small change could have huge ramifications. Let’s say that everything stays 99 percent the same, that people watch 99 percent as much television as they used to, but 1 percent of that is carved out for producing and for sharing. The Internet-connected population watches roughly a trillion hours of TV a year. That’s about five times the size of the annual U.S. consumption. One per cent of that is 100 Wikipedia projects per year worth of participation.

I think that’s going to be a big deal. Don’t you?

I was there at web 2.0 but I tend to bail on keynotes. Hat tip to open left.

Continuing my comment to Rick Segal’s post:

The placement of automated ticket machines at movie theatres is really a marketing question. Where are those machines placed? The movie theaters I have been to, the machines are placed on the side behind the ticket windows.

If the owners were really serious about it they would put the machines out in front of the ticket windows right next to where the ticket windows lines would form.

Instead the machines are placed behind where people only see them after they have already made the purchase.

Stupid, stupid.

What’s even stupider is that those machines are a perfect opportunity to get opt-in access to the theater’s customers.

The machines could (for the options that would require more time make sure that the movie isn’t starting in the next 10 minutes):

• display a 10-second preview for another movie
• ask if the customer would like to buy a 5-movie pass instead of just the ticket they are buying now.
• if they are buying for more than 4 people automatically print out the 5-movie pass ticket (5 separate tickets some people might need to go in ahead of others.) The customer will be thrilled to get a surprise discount!
• Ask them if they want to get a chance to at special screenings for the summer blockbusters.
• remind the customer of the last movie they saw at the theatre, and ask the customer if they want to buy the DVD of that movie. If so charge the customer, print out a claim ticket so that the customer with no waiting can go right to the counter inside to collect the movie
• print out a coupon for a discount on the DVD for the movie that they are going to see right now. If the customer signs it and drops it in a collection box on the way out, the DVD will be sent to the customer even before it hits the shelves.
• Try to sell the drinks/popcorn/etc. The customer doesn’t have to wait in the concession line. The customer line-jumps hands over the receipt (printed out by the ticket machine) to the concession employee and runs into the show. (Actually this is the exception to the 10 minute rule — always do this — how many late arrivals never buy food because the show is going to start any minute?)

The above was 10 minutes worth of thought.

But clearly this is more time than the theatre owners have spent on the issue.

From Shannon:

hmm well the number of people I know who keep replacing clutches & transmissions much higher than the issues I’ve had w/autos

If you already know how to drive, learning to drive a manual transmission takes 45 minutes. A manual transmission gives you these benefits:

• Lower brake wear-and-tear
• Higher gas mileage
• Cheaper maintenance - manual transmissions have fewer parts than an automatic.
• Cheaper to purchase - cheaper to make + fewer people want a manual so they are lower in price on the used car market.
• Can rent/use cars in other parts of the world which may have only manual transmission cars
• Impress your friends with tricks like driving without the gas pedal

How to get the benefits:

• Instead of having your foot on the gas until the moment you slam on the brakes, try this: Take your foot of the gas a long way away from that red light or stop sign. Push in the clutch and let the car coast. It will slow down naturally. When you finally do brake, the car will be a lot slower and the brakes will not do as much work. This will dramatically increase the brake life and saving gas and bucks (or euros).
• When driving in stop-and-go traffic, ease off the clutch just enough to get the car rolling. Push the clutch back in and let the car coast toward the cars in front of you. (brakes and gas again)
• Ease in and out of gear. Don’t leap from the clutch to the gas pedal. This ain’t the Dayton 500. Take your time and don’t let the transmission get constantly hammered by suddenly being engaged. Learn to avoid stalls by learning how to drive a manual correctly. (saves maintenance)
• Once the gear change has been completed - get your foot off the clutch. If you leave your foot on the clutch even a “little bit”, chances are that the clutch will be slightly engaging - wearing it out faster.

Driving on hills:

Its actually pretty easy.

1. When stopping give yourself extra room to the car in front of you. They might roll backward or you might need the room for what happens next.
2. If you are the first car stop with your front tires over the lip of the hill.
3. When going up a hill rather than braking at the top, try to put the clutch in so the car coasts to the stop. Not always possible - but a goal. This will leave you in the happy situation of your foot being on the clutch and the gas.
4. Use the combination of the clutch and gas pedal to deliver enough engine power to the tires so that you don’t roll. Going forward will be a piece of cake - just add more gas and ease off the clutch
5. If you find yourself with your foot on the brake and the clutch, then you will need to get from the brake to the gas.
6. Don’t panic.
7. Ease off the clutch until you start feeling the engine engaging.
8. Then quickly transition from the brake to the gas pedal
9. Press down on the gas only enough to get you going slightly forward - you might go forward more than you intended (thats why you gave yourself the room to the next car - right?)
10. If you stall, don’t freak and don’t let the guy with the horn bother you. Brake. Clutch. Key to restart and try again.
11. If the guy behind you is really on your tail, then let his front bumper touch your rear bumper. His car will stop yours from rolling backward while you do the brake-to-gas transition Be sure to thank him properly!

The Pat Moore, patent-pending, I-will-sue-your-ass-if-you-use-it, guaranteed-not-to-fail-or-your-money-back!

If you follow these steps you will learn how to drive a stick shift in about 45 minutes. Driving a stick shift will let you:

1. get more mpg (manuals have higher EPA ratings than automatics)
2. reduce your car repair expenses. (Automatic transmissions have more moving parts and are more complex.)
3. reduce your car maintenance expenses. (You can coast up to stoplights rather than having your food on the accelerator until the moment you are slamming on the break.)

I learned to drive in Michigan and when to college in a town that had snow, ice, more snow , more ice and hills that is some cases were as bad as San Francisco’s (only with ice).

I have taught a bunch of people (~8) how to drive a stick shift this way and have had 0 failures and everyone of them could drive a stick after 45 minutes (assuming you already know how to drive).

So here is how to do it:
Get a manual transmission car to a parking lot. This parking lot will have 4 features:

1. empty
2. speed bumps
3. fairly long straight section
4. flat

Generally a office building’s parking lot on weekends works best. Not-so-good: a mall’s parking lot during Christmas.

Lesson #1:

1. Get the car so that you have the maximum empty straightaway ahead of you.
2. Do NOT touch the gas.
3. Press in clutch (and keep it in)
4. Put car in first gear.
5. Turn on car
6. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
7. Slowly ease the clutch out (very slowly)
8. At some point you will feel the clutch start to engage and the car will start to inch forward.
9. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
10. Continue to slowly ease the clutch pedal out.
11. LISTEN to the car engine. Watch the tachometer if the car has one.
12. Don’t freak if the car stalls. Just remember what the tachometer reading was when it stalled and restart it.
13. If the car starts to stall, push the clutch in - do NOT touch the gas
14. Continue to slowly ease the gas pedal out letting the car pick up speed.
15. At some point, hopefully before you run out of parking lot, the clutch will be completely out and the car will be doing about ~7 mph.
16. Without stopping, press in clutch (and keep it in)
17. Put car in second gear.
18. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
19. Slowly ease the clutch out (very slowly) until once again you are not pressing in the clutch at all.
20. Pay attention to the sound of the car engine and the tachometer reading. Try to get as close to the stall point without stalling
21. Repeat for 3rd, 4th gears (if possible before crashing into bushes)
22. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
23. Turn car around.

Lesson #2:

1. Repeat Lession #1 - each time trying to ease the clutch out faster and faster
2. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
3. Pay attention to the sound of the car engine and the tachometer reading. Try to get as close to the stall point without stalling

Lesson #3: Hills

1. Drive car to first speed bump.
2. Press in clutch (and keep it in)
3. Put car in first gear.
4. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
5. Slowly ease the clutch out (very slowly) until the car begins to creep over the speed bump.
6. Stop releasing clutch. Let the car’s engine be engaged just enough so that you don’t roll backward but not enough to actually go forward.
7. Play with clutch to rock back and forth with the front tires slowly climbing/descending the speed bump.
8. Repeat until you don’t roll off the speed bump either direction.

This is how you handle hills on a stick shift. Only with a real hill you will need to use a little bit of the gas pedal as well. But you will not use the brake. (For the most part).

Lesson #4: Jump Starting and confidence building

1. Repeat Lesson #1 - quickly getting the car going.
2. Press in clutch (and keep it in)
3. Put car in first gear.
4. Turn off car (while it is rolling about ~17 mph)
5. Press in clutch (and keep it in)
6. Put car in first gear.
7. Turn car to on position (but not to start the car)
8. Release the clutch as fast as you can by letting your foot slid off the pedal. (”popping the clutch”)
9. The car will jerk around and if you are going fast enough it will start up on its own….. and the car will be just fine.

Lesson #5: Go practice on the streets.

In summary:

1. Don’t press the gas pedal. People who don’t know how to drive stick shifts leap on the gas pedal like it is the last raft off the Titanic.
2. If the car is going to stall, press the clutch not the gas pedal. Pressing the gas pedal could send you leaping into traffic. Pressing the clutch is much safer.
3. Don’t freak if you stall - it ain’t a big deal. And flip off the asshole behind you with the horn.
4. Really feel your car and it’s stall point.
5. Relax.

That’s it .. and be sure to send your check. o.k.?

Like many software engineers, it has been a long time since I did anything with computers that had any physical world visibility.

So BUG is cool! I want one (maybe for next christmas?)

Inspired this 31 hour 4 minute run coast-to-coast. The youtube videos and the previous record run.

and …

The checklist for the 31 hour 4 minute run, which hit a top-speed of 160mph (256 kph):

• Twenty packs of Nat Sherman Classic Light cigarettes
• Breath mints,
• Glucose and guarana,
• Visine and riboflavin,
• Gatorade and Red Bull,
• mail-order porta-pissoir bags of quick-hardening gel,
• Randolph highway patrol sunglasses,
• 20-gallon reserve fuel tank,
• Tasco 8 x 40 binoculars fitted with a Kenyon KS-2 gyro stabilizer,
• military spec Steiner 7 x 50 binoculars,
• Hummer H1-style bumper-mounted L-3 Raytheon NightDriver thermal camera and LCD dashboard screens,
• front-and-rear-mounted sensors for a Valentine One radar/laser detector,
• flush bumper-mount Blinder M40 laser jammers,
• redundant Garmin StreetPilot 2650 GPS units,
• preprogrammed Uniden police radio scanners,
• ceiling-mount Uniden CB radio with high-gain whip antenna.
• E39 BMW M5,
• copilot,
• $150,000,
• chase plane…