I could care less if the Big Three were to disappear overnight. For decades they’ve existed as marketing and financial bureaucracies–not car companies, putting out shitty products propped up by nostalgia, misguided patriotism, cheap fuel, and cheap money. In the meantime, their foreign competitors have innovated, diversified, and invested wisely, building their brands over years, if not decades. The American automotive industry seems to be institutionally incapable of learning anything; it’s time to stand back and watch those institutions implode. This doesn’t mean we won’t have an automotive industry; it just means that new companies will have a chance to grow and innovate without being overshadowed by these soulless monstrosities.
However, I’d be perfectly happy to have the Feds relieve them, and American businesses in general, of the twin clusterfucks we know as defined benefit retirement plans and employer-based health insurance.
If you’re reading this, you probably do a lot of web browsing. Imagine how much more you could see if your browser were faster. Here are a few things you could get to speed things up:
Firefox 3 features dramatic speed improvements over version 2, as well as better handling of embedded Flash files. While Google Chrome is mind-blowingly faster than FF3, I still stick with Firefox for its add-ons, like ColorZilla, Web Developer Toolbar, MeasureIt, FireBug, and…
This Firefox add-on lets you choose not to show Flash objects embedded on the page. Ever get annoyed by Flash ads, music and video players, and games slowing you down? This is the add-on for you.
This Windows utility isn’t exactly related to speedy browsing, but it’s a fast and easy way to clear temp files, browser cache, and other things you don’t need filling up your hard drive. I run it once every 1-2 months and clear out several hundred megabytes worth of accumulated crap.
If you’re on MySpace or Facebook, updating your LinkedIn profile, blogging on WordPress or Blogger, sharing photos on flickr and Picasa, and Twittering your every move, should you give up any notion of selectively controlling information? Or should you just assume that everyone can piece together all the pieces of the puzzle, drop any pretense of anonymity, and treat it all as one big public identity?
We just launched the new MySpace profile. It’s completely opt-in, but if you’re willing to take a look, you can upgrade by going to Customize Profile from the Profile nav menu.
Per module privacy (public, friends only, friend category only, me only)
Modules settings for showing/hiding fields, configuring display options
This has been at least a year in the making, from concept to design to development, so it’s good to get it out there. But we’re not finished yet. More themes and features are in the pipeline. Enjoy!
The Constitution declares that “[an] Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.” The primary purpose was to assign Congressional delegates to the member States based on population, but the Census Bureau does a lot more than just count heads. They collect all sorts of data, and employ math/stats people to come up with estimates for those years when we don’t have a census.
Here’s something I bet you didn’t know (I didn’t know until I looked):
2006 Census Estimate
Households
Percentage
Married-couple family household
55,521,868
49.7%
Male householder, no wife present family household
5,121,415
4.6%
Female householder, no husband present family household
13,920,783
12.5%
Nonfamily household
37,053,336
33.2%
Total households
111,617,402
Given the data:
…should tax policy favor married people?
…should housing developers and planning policies assume that residents will be married-couple family households?
…should people be smacked when they continue to claim that half of marriages end in divorce?
Only the third one is a rhetorical question (the answer is yes).