Even if it did shut off, the 20w oil you're running wouldn't go anywhere in a few seconds. 0w20 is 0w cold, 20w hot.

What I meant by "zero weight oil" would be 0w-0, which you're never going to see inside a motor - it would run down to the sump like water :)

Modern oils and engine manufacture really are amazing, which was my point to the original poster. Engines often outlive the vehicle these days as long as you change the oil every once in a while.

Really? It doesn't take 0w-30? There's a difference ;)

I should have been more specific and said 0w-0, but your comment actually furthers my point.

0W-30 oil is 0w cold, 30w hot. When you shut off the engine for 30 seconds the oil is actually thicker than when it is cold, thus preventing it from running back to the sump in an instant.

Um, unless you're running zero weight oil in your car (you're not) ... it doesn't run like water back to the sump in 60 seconds.

Your "known fact" is sort of correct when a car has been parked for some time (say, overnight) and you're cold starting it. But even that's a bit of a stretch these days with modern synthetic oils. Tear a motor down even after it's been sitting for weeks and you'll still find oil clinging to the bearing surfaces and pistons/cylinders.

And you can occasionally have a good individual experience with Comcast as well. Take for example my current Comcast connection (Denver, CO suburbs). It works. Exceptionally well; I actually get 15Mbit service and I'm only paying for what is advertised as 6Mbit (I suspect this is due to an inept service rep when I purchased service and my account is provisioned incorrectly, but we'll ignore that for the moment). I don't have packet loss, and in 4 years I can only remember one outage.

That fact doesn't outweigh the fact that overall, they suck. Prior to moving to CO 4 years ago I lived in the mid-atlantic (VA/DC/MD/DE) and had comcast in different locations over the years. It was horrible - packet loss, outages, slow speeds, etc. Every time, without exception. But I was never close enough to a CO to get DSL from Verizon except maybe one time at 768Kbps (and Verizon prior to FIOS was never interested in installing RT's in neighborhoods to extend their service area).

The point I was trying to make is that the phone companies are much like Comcast in that they operate as a local monopoly and arguably are ever only slightly better in regard to customer service. You won't ever find them at the top of the list. You're basically presented with a choice between the lesser of two evils, and 'lesser' in this case is often ambiguous.

Arguably, no, they don't care.

Most monopolies don't. Even in areas where they have to compete against DSL, there's only a small segment of the population that can purchase service that rivals theirs in terms of advertised speed / service. And even then ... who are they competing against? Well ... the phone company, which has a stellar reputation when it comes to customer service ...

Not to mention that it's amazingly coincidental that the internet goes away days before the first elections in 20 years.

No election observers, no foreign journalists, no connection with internet. All signs point to the junta cutting off its people from the rest of the world.

We rented a Mazda2 diesel in 2005 when visiting the UK. Drove it for a week and got 50mpg (average for the week) on diesel with the tiptronic transmission.

Toyota is a publicly held company. The only way to (legally) distribute "profits" outside the company is through dividends. There are plenty of US shareholders.

Aside from that, does the nationality of the executives who get millions in pay and bonuses really matter? "Trickle down economics" is bullshit, and you nor anyone you know will ever see a dime of it regardless of whether it ends up in the US or Japan.

The only way your argument makes any sense is if you want to talk about jobs created/bolstered by the deal that aren't in the US , of which their are few since Toyota figured out about 20 years ago it was cheaper to build cars here than shipping them over on a boat. Possibly some R&D and marketing, though they may do that here as well (I'd have to google it ... ).

YMMV ...

I see it every time I go through Kansas City (MCI) and Denver which is twice a month right now.

To be fair, the F1 coverage isn't terrible with the exception of the 4 races that are shown on Fox with no pre-race. And the formula 1 debrief show is well done.

MotoGP/SBK is another story - no practice, no qualifying, no post-race, and they don't even broadcast SBK in HD. On top of that the commentary is just poor, with the announcers having little knowledge of the sport (often struggling to wven pronounce the rider's names never mind knowing anything about their racing history). The eurosport coverage is leaps and bounds beyond this, and includes all the thing listed above that speed can't be bothered to show.

I can comment on the Singapore GP.

The problem is that F1 sells the exclusive US rights to FOX/Speed and we get stuck with shitty coverage. Same for MotoGP/SBK. They of course do this because US broadcasters aren't willing to pay for rights unless they don't have to compete on merit with anyone else.

I get the British Eurosport broadcasts via torrents. Yes, I know, I'm violating copyright ... but I'd happily NOT do so if I had the option to pay for it. I can not legally acquire these broadcasts in the US, period - they even prevent you from buying the streaming based on IP-Geo.

I can't buy the better product at any price. I'm not watching the local broadcast - something that is, for sake of argument, free provided I have basic cable or access to a local sports bar. Instead I am violating copyright. There's something very wrong with that.

I'm asking because .. I do, and let me tell you, it sucks. We've had open reqs for months now that we haven't been able to fill, and that's not due to lack of trying.

I recently read a comment from a (now) friend who was my manager years ago; "If I need a Sr. Engineer, I advertise for an Architect. If I need an engineer, I advertise for a senior".

I'm finding this to be completely true. I've interviewed people recently for Senior positions who can't pass the FizzBang test, never mind anything more complicated (and we don't start with fizzbang, it's usually a last resort during the interview), I'm not quite sure if their resumes are simply complete works of fiction or if someone has actually been paying them for some reason.

I almost am willing to theorize that the dot-bomb fallout isn't over, and that there are still many, many "engineers" and "developers" who have been incredibly over-employed for many years who now find themselves out of work. If I were looking for Jr. developers, some of these people *might* make the cut.

Without getting into the argument of whether or not targeted advertising works better (IMHO, it does) ... the answer is "Because that's the price they are putting on the use of their service"

You don't get to dictate the price of a service - the company/person providing it does. If you don't like behavioral tracking, you can avoid it by not using their "free" service. Google isn't forcing anyone to use gmail.

If someone says they'll clean your house for $50, you don't have the option of telling them to clean it for $30. Or telling them how to do their job, and that they don't really need to use a certain method of cleaning (Well, you do ... they just will tell you to go stuff yourself, which what the original point of my post, though I was really just kinda going for sarcasm.)

Great idea. As long as people realize that it will also serve as the "I no longer get services such as email, social networking, and search for free" list.

"free" in the "my credit card isn't charged monthly" sense, obviously. And yes, that's ignoring the technical nightmare of trying to do such a thing in the first place.

Exactly.

You know what? My wife can use AppleTV. She loves it. She's not a techno geek, and doesn't even know what any of the things people here are going on about.

I use handbrake and convert everything of mine that I want to stream. It's not an arduous task. I have an XP VM running on my basement server for iTunes.

I'm going to buy one of the new AppleTVs for the bedroom TV. The addition of Netflix is going to make her day. I'll get bonus husband points.

The day geeks realize that consumer products are meant for the other 98% of the population is apparently the day I'm going to have to purchase a pig-sized flyswatter.