Mallard

This sentence make grammer panda a saaaaad panda.

Considering it's a fully functional wing and that car is intended to be a track car, not a street car, it gets a 'pass.' I agree on all the cars in that album, except the Scion Time Attack car. The front wing may look ridiculous, but function was the #1 consideration when designing the car. It's going to look sweet going up Pikes Peak.

Jalopnik did a piece on him this week too that was pretty good. I heard some stories about him running races with no pit crew. He would pull into the pits, get out of his car, change his own tires, then get back in and continue racing. Not sure if it's legend or truth, but he's definitely a pretty cool guy. I respect guys like Boris Said and Randy Probst a lot because they started out on their own. True grassroots racers.

Ever see the movie Idiocracy? I think it's going to come true.

Won't happen until we cut the national debt. It's up to you as a consumer to make your voice heard and buy American.

They came back Sunday night. I just never posted about it.

I think the opposite. Teenage prenancy is out of control, so I don't think it's encouraging anyone. Hopefully people are watching it and realizing how f-d up and trashy you life is destined to be when you have a child at that age.

What will I do if I can't watch "The Vanilla Ice Project?!"

Yeah, true. ATT claims the network wants to charge them 3 times as much as other carriers, but it sounds like there's more to the story. The network says they agreed to ATT's distribution fee's but the dispute is over ATT wanting to distribute the networks video "in way's that go beyond normal business practices." http://www.thestreet.com/story/10912955/1/atampt-u-verse-drops-hgtv-food-network-other-family-friendly-networks-from-its-channel-lineup.html Either way, now I have no use for Uverse.

The tv in my house usually only goes between a few channels, local news, HGTV, DIY Network, and SPEED. Today ATT shut off HGTV, DIY, and Food Network over a contract dispute, but to 'make it better' they are giving a free preview of TLC (so now I have TLC on two channels), CMT (I hate country music), ION (who really gives a fuck), and Bravo (which I now have twice also). ATT can blow me. I'll be canceling tomorrow unless it's back.

DSM Liver?

I'm looking at buying a foreclosed home that needs a lot of work. The appeal is it's an 110 year old Victorian farm house that sits on 3 acres. I love old homes and my wife and I are both up for the project. It's listed as a 6 bedroom house, but the renovation would make it 4 bedrooms, MAYBE 3 depending on how small we feel the current rooms are (it's 2000 sq. ft), or WHERE they are. With a renovation of this type, is it possible to have the taxes reassessed as a 3 or 4 br/2.5 ba house, and would that bring the taxes down, or are the taxes high because of the land?

Laying slate or natural stone can be harder to do right, compared to porcelain or ceramic tile. The problem with slate is that every tile is a different thickness. That gives the floor more texture/character, but a pro will lay the floor much more evenly. The same can go for a natural stone, like marble, granite, etc. depending on tile size and thickness. Right now I'm putting down marble tile that's 12x24 and it's a real bitch to lay evenly. For a first timer I would do a smaller area with porcelain or ceramic before progressing to slate. I did my kitchen, hall, laundry, and bath in porcelain 13x13's and it wasn't too bad.

I second everything that Tim says and vote for the Fusion.

Ahh, d'oh. Sigma and Zeta. I got those mixed up because I always hear rumors of the next CTS/Camaro moving to the same platform. I wonder if the AWD provisions are left over from another car on the platform, kind of like how the Sol/Sky has splined front hubs for half-shafts.

AJ - The CTS comes with AWD, so I'm not too surprised. Have you looked at the floorpan's on both to see if they are the same? FST94TSI - Was that directed at me? I said I like the Gen Coupe, so I don't see what your problem is. My first response was tongue-in-cheek, a la my internet hero Antoine Dobson. But you should also know that Jeremy Clarkson is equally tongue-in-cheek, and you shouldn't hang on his every word.

The Solstice platform does not lend itself to the type of car the Camaro needs to be in order to be successful. With its design you lose a lot of interior space, trunk space, and it had poor ergonomics. A stretched Solstice platform would basically be a Corvette, yet the Solstice weighs almost the same with a V8 installed. (About 3000-3100 lbs for a turbo Ecotec model). A Camaro built off a Solstice platform would have very little interior space (only a 2 seater), no trunk space, bad ergonomics, and probably horrible NVH as well. The Camaro needs to be a 2 door sedan that can be used as an every day car, but still run strong at the track. To me, I don't see a way of doing this with a body on frame, it needs to be unibody. The Holden Ute isn't a utility vehicle. It's a G8 with a bed, and it's load rating would tell you the same thing. The reason it's heavy has more to do with the platform being shared among 'high content' luxury vehicle's, like the Cadillac CTS, Pontiac G8/Holden Caprice/Commodore/etc. I actually like the Genesis Coupe and I wish GM would have built something like that instead of how the Sol/Sky turned out. If GM made a Genesis Coupe with the Solstice Turbo drivetrain I would be at the dealership putting my name on the wait list tonight.

Bad, bad, bad idea.

So during years of development the engineers found a way to gain 10-15% efficiency at high speeds without adding any extra parts/cost, and now people want to bash GM for being 'liers' because during development they told you it's a pure electric car with an engine as a range extender. Well, in the last day nothing has changed. The car still goes ~40 miles before turning the engine on. The engine generates electricity to recharge the battery and provide electricity to the motor. The only difference is over 70 mph the engine will be partially coupled to to motor and provide some power to the wheels. The car still cannot move without the electric motor driving the wheels. GM promised the most efficient vehicle ever produced. They promised ~40 miles on an electric charge. They promised the Volt was a series hybrid unlike any other car on the road. They are delivering on all of those, but some Jalopnik writer has his panties in a bunch over semantics and wants to start some sort of campaign. We should be praising the engineers for finding ways to make the car better instead of crying about some inconsequential detail that changed throughout development.

But the Ute is not a truck platform, it's a car platform. So saying the Camaro is built off an Aussie truck is incorrect. It's the other way around. Either that or the Cadillac CTS is built off a truck platform too. OMG what a piece of crap!

When they released the 230 mpg number it was plainly stated that those numbers were based on the EPA driving cycle used to calculate the number on your window sticker. It was a combination of driving 40 milez on full electric and having the engine turn on after that. The early magazine tests say they averaged high twenty's to high thirty's MPG, while IN CHARGE SUSTAINING MODE and dependent on driving style. Getting over 20 mpg while hustling down twisty roads is pretty darn good, as is high thirty's while on the freeway. They also said that depending on driving style they were able to get high 20's to low 50's for all electrc range, which was not factored into their MPG figure.

You are so dumb. For real.

I think it's BS that people are making such a big deal about this. They 'lied' because they had a patent application that wasn't granted yet. Plus, the engine only PARTIALLY powers the wheels over 70 mph on the highway in order to INCREASE THE FUEL EFFICIENCY! Had they NOT done this people would be crying that GM didn't do everything they could to make the car as efficient as possible. Companies have to keep details about their projects secret in order to protect their intellectual property, until it's protected by patents. So they didn't spell everything out for the general public until the car was released. Big fucking whoop.

Speak of the devil. Here's a good example. http://www.autoblog.com/2010/10/10/report-google-quietly-logs-over-140k-on-autonomous-cars-in-u-s/

Self-driving cars and this technology exist today. The 20 year claim is the estimate for when it will be cheap enough to be in an average priced car. And Jones, I'm sure lots of people would like to go to Hocking for a ride in Stanfod's Audi TT.