Robert Hall

Well written and entertaining, with many amusing passages and lines---the interior description, engine note description, and the styling description in particular. Even made me look up a word I'd never seen before--'jeroboam'.

True, the initial Europe and NA Chevywoos have been mediocre sh*tboxes (Aveo, G3,Lacetti, etc) but they did design the new Cruze, Spark, Orlando, and Viva, so maybe something semi decent will come from them..

I've noticed some oddness over the last week, when typing into a form for a post, as I am doing right now, occasionally the cursor suddenly backspaces to the beginning of the word I'm typing--or back several words. I've seen this behaviour on these forums and another that is also using IP.Board (2.3.1 and 2.3.6), on multiple computers---a Win XP machine using Chrome, a Vista machine w/ both Chrome and Firefox 3.5. Anyone seen anything like this? It can be very annoying when it happens 5-6 times in typing a post, as it did typing this one.

I've come to like XKCD.. esp. the math angle. I think I'm at the point in my life where I'm not interested in being in a startup environment w/ 20 somethings that work all the time, are underpaid, and seem to live to work, not the other way around. I went through that phase earlier in my career and burnt myself out on it. Now I prefer being a contractor/consultant and work a straight 40 hours at a good bill rate, and get paid overtime if I have to work overtime once in a while.

Speaking of IT guys named Dave, at the company I was at almost 5 years, our CM (configuration management) guy was named Dave...everyone liked him, etc. At some point, he decided to leave the company. The new guy that took his place was also named Dave, but had a gruff personality, not as much fun as Old Dave. So everyone on my team took to calling him New Dave. We'd go out for Thai, ask him, he said he didn't like Thai, and we'd say 'Old Dave liked Thai. We liked Old Dave'. Etc...hilarity ensued. A year or so later he left the company. He replacement was a Mike, so he immediately became known as 'Not Dave'.

Now that I understand the meme, your email chain is hilarious.

Dilbert has it's ups and downs. But so often over the last 15 years or years or so, it's been a slightly exaggerated view of life in corporate America. It's been too real for me at times in cubeland.

I just can't get into it...now User Friendly and Dilbert I can relate to.

Lately, since seeing Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood in concert a couple weeks ago, I've been listening to their Live at Madison Square Garden CD and alot of old Traffic, Cream, Blind Faith, and their solo work from the '70s-80s. I'm a classic rock fan at heart.. As far as 'new' music, I've listened to the Toxic Airborne Event and The Gaslight Anthem a lot lately...liking both bands.

Speaking of memes, this time last year I was working at a startup in Scottsdale with a team of 20-somethings, all Mac and Toyota fan boys (Priuses, an FJ Cruiser, Matrix, a couple Camrys, etc) and they drove me nuts by constantly using the meme 'That's what she said' in conversation. Funny once or twice, but 50 times a day? AUGGGGGHHHH. And constantly refererencing web cartoons 'Penny Arcade', 'XKCD', and 'Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal'. Talk about a generation gap...was glad to get out of there and back into big corporate environments that are more professional.

The internet is a series of tubes, not a big truck.

Well, I am over 30, so I'm not hip with what the latest all the kiddies are talking about, esp. anything related to games..

Hmmm...you are missing words known as 'verbs' in your conversation. 'I accidentally my printer'--huh?

AP ArticleDETROIT – The new General Motors arose on Friday as lawyers finished an all-night paperwork session transferring the bulk of the automaker's assets to a company controlled by the U.S. government.Once the world's largest and most powerful automaker, new GM is now cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without federal loans.But the new GM also emerges amidst the worst sales slump in a quarter-century.The massive transfer of factories, money and intellectual property was completed about 6:30 a.m., according to a person briefed on the situation, clearing the way for a smaller and faster company better equipped to compete in the brutally tough global automotive market.The person, who asked to remain anonymous because the deal wasn't announced officially, said the signing meant the new GM had emerged from bankruptcy. The person said lawyers spent the night signing a 2-foot-high pile of documents clearing the way for the asset sale to the new company.One bankruptcy expert called GM's 40-day case the fastest ever for a company of its size. The speedy close marks a victory for the Obama administration, which now boasts two successful automaker reorganizations. Government and company officials had expected the bankruptcy to last as long as 90 days, but it went even faster than crosstown rival Chrysler Group LLC, which spent 42 days under court protection.GM's warp-speed emergence from bankruptcy is expected to be announced by CEO Fritz Henderson and new Chairman Edward Whitacre Jr. at a 9 a.m. news conference at the company's Detroit headquarters.Henderson is also expected to announce details of the plan to make new GM profitable again. The troubled automaker has lost more than $80 billion in the past four years.The plan Henderson is expected to outline includes cutting another 4,000 white-collar jobs, including 450 top executives. The company still employs 88,000 people in the U.S. and 235,000 worldwide. And he'll announce that product development guru Bob Lutz will stay with the company as an adviser, rescinding his retirement that was to take place by year's end.He also will describe how GM will streamline its bureaucratic management structure to become profitable again. GM has said it will be able to make money even if the U.S. auto market stays at a depressed level of 10 million to 10.5 million vehicles sold.Yet despite massive cost reductions, experts say GM must produce vehicles that people want to buy, and change its image to one on the cutting edge of efficiency and quality. The new automaker now must win back customers in the worst auto sales market in more than 25 years."It is the smaller, leaner, tougher, better cost-focused GM," said George Magliano, an automotive analyst with the consulting firm IHS Global Insight. "But they still have to deal with the problems that they faced longer-term."Rep. Gary Peters, whose Michigan district is home to three GM factories, said the company's emergence signals a new era for the domestic auto industry and the thousands of people it employs."With bankruptcy in the rearview mirror, U.S. auto companies will even more aggressively pursue new technologies, become more globally competitive," he said. "Decades from now, our nation will be glad we did not let a global credit crisis put an end to the American automobile.""I'm very much looking forward to a point where we're operating in clear air, and the name of the company not being associated with bankruptcy and loans and these things," said Mark LaNeve, GM's North American marketing chief.GM ranked as the top global automaker in terms of sales for 77 years before Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. snatched its crown in 2008. The company sold nearly 8.4 million cars and trucks around the world in 2008, falling short of Toyota's nearly 9 million.Once the largest corporation in America, GM held the top spot in the Fortune 500 ranking for 20 years before being pushed out of the top spot in 1973 by Exxon Mobil Corp. It reclaimed No. 1 status in 1985 and held it for another 15 years.Experts say GM's success will depend largely on its ability to persuade consumers that it's a different company, one that builds cars that will equal or outlast Japanese models. To illustrate the change, GM is considering a new name.Turning a profit will not be easy. GM has piled up losses and survives only because it expects to receive $50 billion in U.S. government loans. Without the loans, its executives have said the company would have been sold off in pieces.The Obama administration has said it does not plan to interfere with day-to-day operations, though it ousted ex-CEO Rick Wagoner and has been involved in picking the new company's board.Most of GM's model lineup is expected to stay unchanged for now. But the company on Friday will probably show off its newer, more efficient models, as well as plans for a U.S.-made subcompact and rechargeable electric vehicles.In addition to the U.S. government's 61 pewrcent controlling interest, the United Auto Workers union gets a 17.5 percent stake of the company through its retiree health care trust, and the Canadian government will control 11.7 percent. The remaining shares went to bondholders of the old company.The parts of GM not moving to the new company will become part of "old GM," a collection of assets and liabilities that will be sold to pay creditors.

Heh-heh...nope, sounds fun, though. I'm working on mortgage and loan processing systems these days for a major bank.

Cool..I've worked w/ some very good graphic artists and UI designers, working w/ Flash, Flex, etc. Look and feel and good user interaction is difficult to get right. The UIs I've built for applications have been pretty ugly, but functional...

Yeah, the business logic, data/persistence layers, web services, messaging, etc. Pretty much all Java development. A lot of what I do is designing and implementing components that run in app servers (JBOSS, IBM Websphere, BEA Weblogic, etc). I've dabbled in GUIs a bit--worked with Applets back in the '90s, more recently, JSP, JSF, Struts. Though usually I work in teams where we have a dedicated UI designer, GUI developer, and I work the middle tier and database sides..

It's going to be interesting to see what happens to MySQL. Sold? Renamed as an Oracle product? I've worked w/ PostgreSQL on a couple small projects years ago, not sure how well it scales. It always seems when I'm on a big project, the client has already committed to Oracle or DB2.

Yeah, it's not a big truck.

Yes, Google's whole software model is web-based, like Docs, Gmail. Different application model from Windows, OSX, Unix, etc. I've been looking into the GWT and other Google technologies, incl. their API for Phone app development... I've been doing enterprise Java for over a decade, looking into Ruby on Rails or phone software development for my next direction, or for side projects...

Yah....next time will be August 8 if you use European date formatting, though..

I saw a maroon Olds Touring like that in the GM tent at Barrett-Jackson last year. Got to ask, though, how would you tell a '23 Olds Touring from a '22 or a '24 (without a sign). I haven't a clue...

On the way home, I saw a pale blue '76 or so Dodge Aspen 4dr, tan vinyl interior, windows down, 65 mph...looked solid. I pity the poor guy driving w/o A/C on a 110 degree day like today. Near home, I saw a white w/ black vinyl top and Cragar SS wheels '71 Pontiac GT-37 (saw the badges!). Very clean except for a large scrape on the left front fender and door.

Stopped for a bagel and coffee this morning, saw a black '10 Camaro SS in front of Einstein's Bagels. First one I've seen up close and personal...nothing parked on either side, so I could do a walk-around...this car has some great proportions and contours...love the rear fender 'hips'....it's proudly RWD and low and wide. Looks even better in person than in pics. I'd previously only seen them at speed on freeways or streets and from a distance at a Chevy dealer.

That's one of my favorite GM concepts of the last decade or so...great dramatic shape.