PurdueGuy

The only reason I care about this is that it adds pressure to other better brands to compete with these products, and I might be interested in those products.

Problem: What car has a 100 mile range and fully charges in an hour? Nothing worth driving. Nissan Leaf is 7-8 hours on 220. This article is hopeful for a 5 minute charge. That's 84 times faster. Granted, that's within the 10-100 times better than current tech range they claim, but reality rarely sees the result (at least at a marketable price) at the upper end of early bragging & hopes of such things. If it can result in a charge time that's twice as fast, that would be huge, and maybe that's something we can hope for. Any claims more than that, and I'll have to see it to believe it, especially at a cost that's able to be used in cars that can be priced for regular consumers.

Concerning an expiration date: a) Even these old plants are very safe. Unfortunately this massive cluster of earthquakes and tsunami seem to have found a nasty achelles heel or two, which I'm certain will be taken care of once things settled down enough to know what really happened. b) I wouldn't necessarily even say an expiration date on the older reactors is a horrible idea, but something like an expiration date is going to end up being decided by government idiots who will base it off of their own ignorance and what will get them re-elected, not engineers basing it off of, you know... facts. c) An expiration date that makes sense for one generation of reactors may not make any sense at all for another.

I like that concept.

Many of the advancements can't be retrofitted, it'd be like retrofitting a 1971 Camaro to be equal in safety and performance in every way to a 2011 Camaro. You're just as well to start from scratch. Only difference is that no one looks at a 1971 reactor and goes "that's a classic!" A number of things can be addressed with older reactors, though, and had the Japanese reactor been a little more prepared for a massive tsunami, it might not be facing the current issues (though it's becoming clear that the info we're being given is far from complete - it'll be interesting to see how much of that is Japan trying to cover their butts & how much is just because it's hard to get communication straight when dealing with an emergency.) I expect at the very least we'll see systems to ensure better reliability of backup power generation and some way to handle excess hydrogen production.

Yup, we're talking about a 8.9-9.0 earthquake and ~275 (and constantly rising) "aftershocks" of 5.0 or higher (IMO "aftershock" doesn't feel like the right descriptor, as it brings to mind little tremors, when it seems that 5.0 would be considered a legitimate earthquake on its own). And it's not even the earthquake that seems to have been the problem, it was the tsunami messing up the backup power generation to pump coolant. Sadly, the situation has gotten much worse than most experts thought it could, and is looking like it could potentially actually be harmful to the environment around the plant. Very sad, and it will set the nuclear power industry back, probably decades, because of the bad PR.

HHR Impreza/WRX Would look at other wagons/hatches. I've been eyeballing the above anyway because they would be good for my business. It's a bit of a pain loading/unloading computers/monitors/toolbox from the trunk of my SC2, but I don't need to haul much, so something fuel efficient (and perhaps a bit fun in the case of the WRX) but easy to load/unload is pretty much what I'm looking at.

CNN was saying the explosion was near the plant, not at the reactor. An explosion in/of the reactor is such an incredibly remote possibility that it's hardly worth even thinking about. Chernobyl was a horribly designed plant that wasn't maintained properly and run by people who made mistake after mistake reacting to the situation. This is a modern plant that, in the case of a meltdown, should be almost completely self-containing. Freaking out about the plant isn't called for at all. *edit* Look at what happened when Three Mile Island melted down... external to the plant, nothing. TMI is still running the other reactor at the plant. No one was hurt. All that happened was it ruined that one reactor and showed that the safety systems worked, but everyone freaked out anyway. I suppose it's possible that this event could be a bit worse than that in a worst case scenario, but that's considering the plant got nailed with a freakishly nasty series of earthquakes and a massive tsunami. It's still, in the worst case scenario, not going to come anywhere near the events of Chernobyl. I never invoked Chernobyl, so why are you arguing that with me? I'm well aware of the deficiencies of Chernobyl, namely the utter lack of a containment facility. And a building housing a reactor DID explode. Listen, I'm a fan of nuclear power...however, I am NOT a fan of governmental disinformation during a crisis, and that's what the Japanese have been doing this whole time, as has been reported on every major news network. "Oh, everything's fine, minor damage, backup systems are working as designed" turns into "primary backup systems have failed, but the secondary backups are working as designed," which then becomes "we ran out of batteries, but everything's fine because we have a team of scientists and experts flying in to assist and worse-case scenario is that a little radiation leaks, but no explosion is possible." soon followed by an explosion. Sorry, but depending on how this $h! blows across the ocean, I'm in the line of fire for radiation exposure. I want to know what is actually happening so I can prepare accordingly to protect myself. And I certainly don't trust the US government to tell me the truth, either. I was a bit worked up, because on top of the lack of good information being released, the horrible lack of understanding of nuclear plant technology by the news agencies makes the disinformation exponentially worse. Frankly I was shocked to find out that the containment building did explode, and the news I was hearing at the time just indicated that there was an explosion in the area, it wasn't clear what it was that blew. The whole situation is worse than I and many others thought it could become. Still, even if the worst what-if scenarios happen, the safety record of the nuclear power industry is miles better than that of most other power generation industries. As has been said, the biggest shame about this is that it will further sour public opinion of nuclear power and set its development back, even though we're talking about a 40 year old reactor lacking in many safety design characteristics of modern plants.

The situation at the nuclear plant has gotten worse than most anyone could have expected. While it's very concerning, it's still nowhere near worth comparing to Chernobyl. It's also good to note that this is a pretty old plant.

CNN was saying the explosion was near the plant, not at the reactor. An explosion in/of the reactor is such an incredibly remote possibility that it's hardly worth even thinking about. Chernobyl was a horribly designed plant that wasn't maintained properly and run by people who made mistake after mistake reacting to the situation. This is a modern plant that, in the case of a meltdown, should be almost completely self-containing. Freaking out about the plant isn't called for at all. *edit* Look at what happened when Three Mile Island melted down... external to the plant, nothing. TMI is still running the other reactor at the plant. No one was hurt. All that happened was it ruined that one reactor and showed that the safety systems worked, but everyone freaked out anyway. I suppose it's possible that this event could be a bit worse than that in a worst case scenario, but that's considering the plant got nailed with a freakishly nasty series of earthquakes and a massive tsunami. It's still, in the worst case scenario, not going to come anywhere near the events of Chernobyl.

Hot, but some of the 'chops aren't very well done.

I like what I see. A small truck's gotta have a decent MPG advantage over the full size as well as the price advantage. Enough of one advantage means less need for the other - you could price the small truck about the same as a full size if it had a big enough MPG advantage, just like a big enough price advantage will mean less need for a MPG advantage. Of course, how capable it is as a truck plays into things too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkUdQtINflw Thought this was a pretty well done commercial, and I'm digging the new tails.

I liked Saturn, but since the car in the article is an Ion, there's no reason to think that a Cobalt wouldn't behave the same way.

You mean the signal lights - the headlights look like giant fog lights.

performance model with an auto... bah. I could see offering both.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1945357 original link got goofed. Kinda funny, could've been done better.

While I like the idea of Chevy having something along the lines of an EVO, I think it might be more of a jump than the market can handle. The Cobalt SS was a serious performance car, and was what, $21-23k? Considering the Cruze isn't built for AWD anyway, seems like it'd make more sense to go with a ~$25k performance model, then plan to add an even higher performance model when the Cruze is replaced, so they build up to an EVO competitor. Perhaps not even call the Cruze performance model an SS, but have a sub-SS moniker that can be kept on the next model, like how the Impreza has WRX and STI. Have a Sport and a Super Sport perhaps.

My previous can was the worst. It had a plastic flexible spout, which you had to turn around and store inside the can to put the lid on. Thus, gas sloshed all over the spout, inside & out, and every time you wanted to use the can, you had no choice but to get gas on your hands. Fill the mower, wash my hands, mow half the yard, fill the mower, wash my hands... Worst. Design. Ever.

I like the button on my newer gas can. I use the can only for filling my push mower. I can get it all tipped up & in position, then push the button to start pouring, so there's no initial sloshing gas where I don't want it while tipping or aiming the can initially. Then, when the tank is full, I release the button and the pouring stops immediately. I spill so much less than with my old can. It also has two handles built in, which is nice for positioning/holding.I can see where there would be situations where its spout wouldn't be long enough though. I'm also tempted to remove the little safety lock that has to be clicked into place before you can pour. Then it'd just be as simple as pick it up, aim it, push the button, pour, release, done. I could see not wanting to hold the button though, some some kind of click open & closed type button could be a nice feature on a nicer can or something. Doesn't take long enough to fill a push mower tank for that to matter though, IMO.

It's been a while, but I sat in the 3rd row of an Outlook, and didn't find it to be that terribly comfortable (I'm 6'). Felt like the 3rd row in a typical early 90's minivan from what I recall. Now the 3rd row in my '98 Suburban, I'd ride back there all day long. It may grow on me, but at first glance the lower front facia looks like an aftermarket add-on piece that's a little out of place.

Beautiful car.

Pretty abysmal fuel economy IMO.

My wife & I have been laptop shopping for her recently, and have been similarly frustrated, but not by a lack of "sexiness", but by all too common poor ergonomic designs: a) Keyboards that are very difficult to feel if you have your hands on home row, hard to feel where one key ends and the next begins. b) Touchpads that have no distinguishable edges, so your finger could wander off of it and you'd have to look down to know why the mouse stopped moving c) Touchpad left/right buttons that are indistinguishable by touch from the touchpad itself d) Touchpad left/right buttons that hinge from the middle, so you have to push down on the far left of the left button, and the far right of the right button e) Touchpad left/right buttons that aren't distinguishable from each other, so you can't feel where you're at, and you have to look. I'm also not a fan of touch-sensitive buttons for media control. Give me real buttons any day.

I bought Civ4 via Steam when it was uber cheap, and have had no issues yet. I've made sure to back up the install files that were downloaded in case of issues. Been itching a little to try Civ5 due to the hex tiles. Seems like a smart tweek that'll affect the game quite a bit.