Pontiac: How to beat the problem of the Beetle and the Bug!

General Motor's employee motivational video from another era. NPR noted in their special on the NUMMI facility (when it was a GM-UAW "partnership"), union contract employees practically had to commit fraud to get fired. As a result, the employees drank on the job, had sex on the job, sabotaged vehicles to "get back" at management, and obviously aided the collapse of the American automotive industry.

Anyway - Pontiac tried to get their employees to show up at work, and uh do their jobs - by appealing to their nationalist sentiments. Obviously it did not work.

What is Kim Jong Il's 'pran'?

In late March, the Cheonan (천안), a South Korean corvette mysteriously broke in half and sank off in the Yellow Sea. The sinking claimed the lives of 46 sailors. North Korea promptly denied any role in the sinking.

This week investigators from Australia, South Korea, Sweden, United States, and the United Kingdom concluded that the corvette, which broke in half, was likely sunk by a torpedo of North Korean origin.

North Korea has already called the results of the investigation a fabrication, and threatened to resume full hostilities in the Korean peninsular if South Korea proceeds with any sanctions.

What is the Dear Intelligent Great Leader, General Secretary, Supreme Commander Kim Jong Il's pran?

Is Kim Jong Il a closet General Motors, Ford, Honda, Toyota fan? And he seeks to ruin Hyundai and Kia's corporate headquarters?

Is the Dear Leader upset that Samsung developed the world's biggest 82-inch TFT-LCD screen? Making his Sony 50-inch cathode ray tube projection television obsolete?


What is this portly midget up to?

What's wrong with this picture?

Original Capacity: 74.88 Wh
Current Capacity: 6.76 Wh

As you can see, my Lenovo Thinkpad X61's 8-cell battery, after 727 cycles, now only has 9% of its original full charge capacity. I used to be able to get a decent seven, sometimes even eight hours of use out of the battery, now? I'll be lucky if it lasts 30 minutes.

The laptop has a relatively smart power manager software that seeks to delay the inevitable deterioration of lithium ion batteries by not charging it to actually 100% of 74.88 Wh and also avoiding unnecessary recharging for situations when you unplug and replug the laptop within a few minutes when relocating from one office to another.

But after only two years of intense law school use and abuse - this laptop will need a new battery for it to become mobile again.

Who still wants to buy a Nissan Leaf?