Yes. That was a single example to show that people in rural areas aren't the only issue mass transit ideas face, and it applies not only there, but also in every other city in the midwest and northeast. Add to that the inverse issue of extreme heat in Houston for example, urban sprawl issues due to extremely high costs of living in city centers, and thousands of other issues that have stopped mass transit anywhere working on a scale anywhere near what would be necessary to eliminate the need for people to ever drive is a good enough reason to dismiss this idea out of hand. That is without mentioning a desire for vacations, hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, etc, where the entire premise is to get away from where everything is.

Minneapolis, the 16th largest metro are in the US, regularly has temperatures around -30F in the winter, without figuring in wind chill. Getting off a bus/train/whatever and walking the last 5-10 blocks is a potentially deadly health risk to the very young and very old at that point. There are plenty more problems than just living in the country that make all those "idiots complain that it won't work."

Actually, he was quoted in the NPR interview as saying: "'I've never seen a check from a [TV] comedy special,' he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. 'It never ends up being that.'" All of that money ends up in the studios pocket is how I understood that. In a matter of four days he has netted $200k on this deal. I do agree that it worked for him because he already had the necessary fan base though.

So you haven't experienced the DVDs that force you to sit through previews by disabling skip and fast forward functionality. How nice for you.

Thank you. Exactly what I was thinking. What is so wrong with keeping company "secrets" on paper only? Not everything needs to be, nor should be, emailed, blogged, and tweeted about. Technology can be good, but is not implicitly better just because it's newer. For example, I will never prefer an e-reader to a good old fashioned book. Oh well. An obligatory get off my lawn!

I was rather looking forward to shorting them.

According to supremecourt.gov: "The Court receives approximately 10,000 petitions for a writ of certiorari each year. The Court grants and hears oral argument in about 75-80 cases." So, roughly, just shy of 1%

I agree with everything that you said. I was just pointing out a specific example of retraining costs associated with upgrading from one version to the next of the same software, which the GP seemed to think was a ridiculous concept. I am enjoying every minute of explaining to users that Documents and Settings is now called Users, as another example. That one is fighting 15 years of dogma for, as far as I can tell, no benefit to anyone. Perhaps lazy script writers that don't want to figure out how to deal with spaces. As for emacs, you must admit that C-x M-c M-butterfly is awesome.

Hundreds of employees each spending 20+ minutes to figure out where the fuck the print button went in the new version of Office, for example. No, clicking on the ball in the top corner of the screen is not even close to intuitive, and no, there isn't anyone that actually clicks on the take a tour of $new_product to find these things out. Even if they did, multiply that half hour to hour of tour across an enterprise, and it is significant.

Wow. Well spoken, good information, and level headed. If I hadn't noticed the user ID, I would say that you are new here. Thanks for the input.

I work across the street from Paine Field, the airport it took off from, and I can tell you that it was pretty exciting to us. We have nothing at all to do with the industry, and we were all still keeping an eye out for the takeoff. Something of an oddity for guys who are used to hearing/seeing dozens of planes take off every day, including a couple of liftoffs of the DreamLifter every day. How often do you get to see history first hand?

If you happen to have a relative that works there, they have a family tour once a year that you can go on. They let you down on the work floor for that tour, instead of just up on the catwalks. The only thing that they have running is one of the ceiling cranes spinning a plane around, so you aren't dodging anything. If you have the chance, I highly recommend it.

No, they shouldn't, but they should have the right to keep the CD in a place where a suit from the RIAA can't intentionally scratch the CD to make sure that it will not play at any time they like. The industry has never been expected to make physical products that are indestructible, but they have never been capable of destroying the product at any moment with no notice. Important difference.