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Here's an interesting article on GM's renewed plant quality excellence: http://www.thecarconnection.com/pf/Industry/Industry_News/Secrets_of_GMs_Quality_Comeback.S175.A7120.html Excerpt:

Before we go about trashing GM too hard, we should give credit where it is due. There are a couple GM plants, maybe even three or four that are considered world class in terms of quality and productivity. I know the two plants near Toronto (GM Oshawa 1 and 2) have been racking up the awards...

Hyundai Sonata, you say? Yes, Hyundai has arrived folks. My buddy is a Hyundai dealer... he is laughing all the way to the bank. He maintains that their models have all been pretty good as of late, but now he is ecstatic that corporate is finally giving him cars that almost sell themselves...

Yes, the new GM cars are actually pretty decent. While the new Malibu had a lot of potential, they had to ruin an otherwise decent car with the ugliest front end I've seen in years (the previous award goes to the Pontiac Aztek). You know, I've heard that companies have recently been turning to...

Meow...

Motorola V60gi. GSM/GPRS basic flip phone. No camera or polyphonic ring tones. Very compact and stylish. Fairly well built. Mediocre reception. Very good standby battery life. Handy shortcut keys, but menu system otherwise not very good. Can only store one number per phonebook entry, so you need...

That's hot, man. If they make them to the same high standards as they do the Corolla (and I don't think there's any reason why they shouldn't), and the resale value turns out to be half decent, you got an excellent car for the money!

D'Oh! I meant a stingray, not a barracuda.

Ever heard of DOS? :) P.S. My $12 two ounce circa 2001 beige Acer keyboard has these infernal Internet buttons on top, but also has all the features you desire (small BS key, L-shaped Enter, compact pure-rectangular form-factor). I've been trying to find a better keyboard for a while, but I...

Here is another excellent article and an excerpt:

Here is an excellent article I read on ultrasonic directional sound and its two competing inventors. Here is an excerpt that I think you (and especially Merc) would appreciate:

Some TV's had something like that. I recall my parents' Pioneer CRT RPTV having it. Didn't make much of a difference, though. I don't know if a simple shift in brightness level would work, though. I think you would have to incorporate some kind of manipulation of the gamma curves (and for each...

It's not lack of sufficient maximal contrast that is the problem. My DLP set, like most of its ilk from the same vintage is vibrant and "pops" with contrasty images. Very excellent contrast. The problem is with the picutre quality of the darker scenes -- specifically, the gamma tracking and...

That was beautiful, i! I not only thought it was hillarious, but I thought it was a wonderfully amazing and instinctive ad hoc collaboration between three posters all taking turns "singing". Such impromptu synchronity, I thought! Only when I read double D's post did I notice that it was me...

Not a big fan of LCD or DLP when it comes to watching darker scenes (as appears on 24, CSI, Alias, movies, etc.) With HDTV signals and brighter scenes, LCD and DLP can look damn good, but it can also look stunningly bad if those conditions are not met. I have a Samsung 43" DLP RPTV and can't say...

Ha! At the end of the year, you will hear reports of "Norway's GDP down 8% from last year"

Indeed, Gilbo. However, I don't think that they think they are wasting time. Hell, I bet there are a lot of voters out there that would not vote for the Conservatives unless they supported banning gay marriage. Probably not as many proportionally as in the US -- we Canadians are in general a...

I quite like Jack Layton as a leader. Too bad he supports the "wrong" platform. I would have liked to install Jack Layton as the leader of the Conservative Party, remove their religious and discriminatory values, and have a viable alternative to the incumbent Liberals. For the record, I voted...

Yes, and it's about time, especially for you! What a winter for Atlantic Canada.

Toronto? Huh? Hey, how did we get dragged into this? Take your crummy constipated volcanoes and keep them under control! I already had a big winter storm that came from the American south ruin my weekend vacation. Enough's enough! :)

Depends on the industry, company, department, and grade level, among other things. At my previous employer, it might range from 10-15% for analysts and 15-20% for middle managers in most departments. Add 5-10 more percent for departments like risk, and double or triple it for traders/IB, etc...

Hmm... While I absolutely support the right to compassionate euthanasia and the right of the husband to execute the wishes of his wife over that of the parents -- good post, i -- I do have my suspicions that Mike's intentions are not entirely on the up and up. Granted, I don't know Mike and...

My sentiments exactly. May Terry finally rest in peace.

Well, I didn't say where I was on that continuum of taxation... closer to a third than a half, that's for sure :) Hmm... well that's good to know coming from someone who has been on both sides of the fence. I just assumed taxes in the US were lower no matter what. You do have to admit, though...

Yes, it is. It's a marketer's wet dream. It's a dream of mine to be able to model consumer behaviour, product adoption, revenue potential, etc. Most of the time we get so caught up with the day to day operational activities of our jobs that we don't get time to develop undeniably cool things...

LOL... Nah, Merc isn't predictable at all...

Ha! The grass is always greener, my friends. I want to get a job in the US and I'm not the only Canadian yuppie (in the complimentary sense) who feels that way. One of the reasons is that many of the head offices are in the US. We work for companies that are subsidiaries of the US MNC. Problem...

Why not leave religion in the discussion? After all, isn't that more representative of the world we live in? I'm not talking about fundamentalist christians, or the SuperCatholic ready to unleash his GuiltMaster 2000 on you... just your average guy who used to go to church every sunday with his...

For those who live in the GTA: 401 and QEW Traffic Cameras http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/traveller/compass/camera/camhome.htm Gardiner and DVP Traffic Cameras http://www.toronto.ca/rescu/ Gardiner and DVP Traffic Flow Data http://www.toronto.ca/trafficimages/rtis.htm Highway Conditions...

LOL... that's pretty good. I almost thought it was a website on the real person until I saw Symantec sercuity response.

Now that Lexus and Ford have demonstrated that it is more than feasible to use hybrid technology effectively and without detriment to performance, hybrid technology should be mandated in those shameless gas guzzling SUV's by 2010. There is simply no excuse to build a 15-20 mpg monstrosity when...

Well you know it's about time that they started making green cars appealing to car enthusiasts. First the Honda Civic hybrid looks and feels like a gas Civic and the Escape hybrid looks and feels like a gas Escape. Then Lexus comes out with the RX400h that performs better than its gas cousin...

Merc, since we're on the subject, do you know this girl called Dani? I hear she has a wonderful personality :)

Good link. Good work, Hakon Lie and Register. Not often that you see a well-supported and documented editorial like that. We need more of that to improve the browser breed and to make the web a better place.

Jenna Jameson... never heard of her either. :mrgrn:

SimCity started it all for me... then things progressed pretty much along the same lines as Tannin's sim journey. Weird!

Wow, it's so nice and warm now! Seriously, I am enjoying this break from the cold. 0 C (32 F) during the day, and -7 C (19 F) at night.

Don't be a player hater! :) Yeah, I know, boo hiss...

^^ The typical NFL line and some of their linebackers, I mean.

Nah, they're not fast enough to cover that much real estate. I'd like to see Michael Vick make the DE's and linebackers chase him all over the field, though.

Ah, yes, that's what it was. 3 in a week. Didn't know that, but perhaps I should have. I know that it's generally windy out there. BTW, it seems I forgot to include 'Scotia as part of my description of Atlantic Canada in the previous post... rest assured that I thought about NS even if I...

Well you know Philly's going to win and the MVP award is going to go to Freddie Mitchell's hands :)

Poor guys, all that snow. It's been a horrible winter for much of the northeastern US and Canada with ridiculous amounts of snow. I've been hearing about Atlantic Canada (New Brunswick and Newfoundland) getting a major snow storm (>1 foot of snow) at least every other week this winter it seems...

Happy New Year everybody! That is a beautiful cat Handy! Reminds me of my neighbour's cat who frequented my backyard back home. Almost exactly the same, but even cuter! Reminds me of a story with my neighbour's cat... One cold wet summer morning, I saw it shivering by the patio door so I...

Hmm... I thought Buffy would have figured somewhere in the description.

Tannin, it's funny, you have produced a large body of work, and your fair share of gems within that -- so much so that, frankly, it's becoming a bit routine. I'm afraid that it's all becoming a bit anticlimactic :mrgrn: Just kidding, old chap. Keep on trucking!

I used to have both a block heater and a car interior heater when I lived in Red Deer, Alberta. I had an outdoor parking spot, unlike these days when I always have an underground spot (at home, anyways... nothing I can do about it at work). When it's -10 to -20 C at 7 AM, it definitely helps the...

Tannin, you've done it again: cranked out another gem. Come to think of it... there's a lot of quality posts in this thread. Damn you all. I'm going to be tired at work tomorrow because I couldn't stop reading!

* -- although I do like the sound of China's telecom deregulation plan. On paper and at first glance, it appears to be a rational, phased-deregulation approach that encourages the incumbents to invest billions in infrastructure and gives enough time to recoup their money under a regulated...

Indeed, infrastructure creation is something that needs to be in the hands of the government -- either initiated and run by or at least encouraged and sustained by a regulated monopolistic market. They don't call them natural monopolies for nothing. We have a similar debate all the time in...