In the future everything is Taco Bell.

I actually thought it was him when I was reading the summary... then I realized it wasn't long enough.

Also most all cars have that caveat on their range.

My last three cars have been far from fuel economical (Turbo, Turbo, W8) but the difference between driving them like my grandma and driving them like myself is a good 50-100 miles on a tank.

Even with myself the difference between City and Highway is significant. In my W8 I've gotten almost 370 on a purely highway trip but in the city I'm lucky to hit *260.

Your last point being the more important. A couple things:
1) Van Halen (by the time they had this rider at least) weren't playing smaller/mid-sized venues. Their production (not to mention the vast majority of this hospitality rider) wouldn't fit in one.
2) If they got the bowl of M&M's at all then the high person on the totem pole did their job. They ripped out the pages related to hospitality and handed them to the hospitality staff most likely without reading because at that point it's not their job. The lawyers job was to make sure they weren't agreeing to anything they shouldn't (like if the band had demanded a kilo of Cocaine delivered to the dressing room before performance time) and after that point it's hospitality's job to get the labor/purchasing done. (and supply chain if it's that big an operation). The tech crew never even saw this part of the rider unless they were curious.
3) These were incredibly large and complex stage productions (still are... they're not dead yet). There are systems issues that just can't be avoided. Gear fails. Cords get snagged. etc etc etc... chances are there were issues with every single performance but a good production crew makes those issues not ruin a show. The times when hospitality didn't do their jobs and the band started micromanaging just proved their point by inclusion NOT exclusion of the other shows.

Companies aren't importing those creme-de-la-creme programmers that we just must have in our country because we are apparently sorely lacking. They are importing labor that despite supposed protections is cheaper (and from what I've experienced socially easier to push around)

My big question is why are you so concerned with bringing them here? The average American corp seems to have no problem having the work done elsewhere anyway so what is the difference if they are sitting in an office here vs. an office in Hyderabad or Bangaluru?

I have no problem with immigration in-general but this whole "we need more h1bs to fill a dire need" BS is just utter hogwash.

I hate to be a spoil sport but I have a copy of their rider.

While their stated intention is true (well at least that they stated it) but the details are quite wrong. The M&M caveat was included in the Backstage Rider which is generally handled by hospitality staff (for such a large production at least). It is not "buried in countless technical specifications" as this article suggests. The terms are also not quite so stated: "M&M's (WARNING: ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES)." This being in a rider whose overriding terms stating that the contract "...may be voided by (Van Halen) unless fully executed..." the surrounding forfeiture of the show may occur but not with full payment (only possible forfeit of paid deposits, expenditures).

Mr. Roth may have had good intentions when he had that written into their rider BUT his prima donna nature was showing in his lack of understanding of how the show was actually being executed. Specifically those responsible for procuring and maintaining backstage hospitality have absolutely *nothing to do with anything technical what-so-ever and so correlating a brown M&M to an issue with the production was misguided more likely incidental.

Honestly I've found most of the conspiracy theorizing to be straight up comical. This movie has cost Sony $79 million. They made $1 million on opening day even with the fury because none of the major distributors would show it. They've lost far more with the early leaks of their other bigger budget films. If this really was a ploy to drive up viewership for this movie than it was a complete failure and as much as Sony makes some terrible decisions they haven't proven themselves to be quite this stupid in how they run their business.

My favorite comment in some article I read was this (paraphrasing): North Korea's guilt may be most telling in a certain absence: All of the movies stolen from Sony have made their way to the streets *except the one movie that North Korea doesn't want you to see. I have no proof and they may be completely innocent BUT there's a lot of good logic in that statement.

Anyway... I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It's not an Academy Award winner by far but that is not what I watch a Seth Rogan film for. Toilet humor at its finest is what it is was and always shall be. They happen to highlight the atrocities of (and really piss off) a terrible totalitarian regime in the process with a heavy dose of reality thrown in it seems (more than their other movies) so props to the effort.

This.^

I can't believe I just read that. New debugging cycle including your code might not work because the compiler doesn't like you that day? I felt like that when i was learning to code in C honestly but I'm sure it was rarely true ;-)

A non-deterministic compiler can suck my big fat one and go far far away before the dribble drops.

Cheers.

Fight the good fight sir.

It's called a philosophy change. We've been living under the current regime of minimal service just barely eeked up every few years always far behind what was capable and being told to take it or leave it (with no real option to leave to).

This is a company giving us far more than we need or want for a fairly reasonable cost. Yes most of their customers won't use that (or buy that... $400 a month is a bit pricy for your average home's internet needs) but compared to the Comcast/CenturyLink habits of overselling oversubscribed lines with not enough bandwidth for too much money and I'll take it!

My only complaint is they are staying south of Downtown. I live in NE Minneapolis and, at the moment, can't even get the CenturyLink service I used to have in South (I had 40/20 and now am relegated to 12M/860K... the DL is ok but that upload is *painful*)

  Someday...

Honestly considering it alone without the history I don't mind Into Darkness. I like the new cast (minus old Spock... his "insertion" was of the worst forced kind) and I like JJ's style lens flares and all.

I was completely pissed off when it was clear they were bringing Khan back.

Wrath Of Khan is one of the best movies ever made, period. For Abrams / whomever chose the script tried to piggy back on that it was a clear statement that they couldn't move forward on their own and had to try to steal from / recreate a cinematic masterpiece. Rebooting the series does NOT mean you have to steal from it. Write your own damn stories please!

*THIS* ^^^^

I've rarely experienced supply and demand so exquisitely demonstrated than when purchasing (or selling) concert tickets. Variable demand spikes depending on the quality of the merchandise (how 'big' is the band); Prices change constantly; inventory moves in and out of the market; Complex timeline price variations starting from pre-sale through on-sale and over the time between release and showtime (somewhat but not always predictable rises and falls over that time). It's a full time job keeping up with all of that on both sides making sure you get the most for the tickets you are selling and paying the least for the tickets you are buying.

I am a music junkie not a scalper but honestly if Ticketmaster/Live Nation were to profile its customer base I'd be in the suspect category just because I spend 250+ nights a year at some show or another and my friends are lazy/poor so my rate of ticket buying is exceptional for a casual user.

IF they are the perpetrators of the hack (seeing as they're claiming they were framed) and IF the U.S. is responsible for this attack (I seem to recall Anonymous threatening to do just such a thing just yesterday, right?) then the level of retribution is not to balance out the corporate hack but rather the threats made toward civilian targets if the movie were to be released.

The hammer of US reaction to any threats of terrorism predictably treats everything as a nail.

That being said I'm pretty at least one of my parentheticals is right... you can guess which one.

C- ... shows distinct lack of ability coupled with severe behavior issues and a complete lack of respect for authority.

Um... that already happened (of course ti was against Sony's will but none-the-less it's out there if you want to see it!)