Yes I too would like to see the new audi A1 - I have been getting very antsy about Audi not having a model for the grade school market, and now that high school kids (a4) and jr. high kids (a3) are all taken care of, they really need to address this gap in their lineup.

And yes, an r4 would also be a great way to continue cheapening (and selling out) the brand - great idea!

An expensive luxury car, huh ?

The a4 is neither expensive, nor is it a luxury car.

Basically what it is is a way for Audi to get money from idiots that should be buying a used Honda and saving their cash. They have built a high-end luxury brand, and the small-sized cars are a way to extend the profitability of that brand.

Stop and think for a second - does a 4-cylinder, 1.8 L engine sound like something that is in a high end car ? No, it doesn't.

That's why they are so cheap.

The internal combustion engine is a laughable, 100+ year old technology that is only kept alive by back room dealing and corporate ineptitude.

Do whatever you want with CAFE - the world is passing you by, automakers, and you will disappear because of your failure to see the glaringly obvious.

No you misunderstand ... I think people should do whatever they want. Buy whatever car you want, etc.

What I am saying is that it is so laughable to construct this image of the big manly american superman, with his big monster truck ... and then drive it back to your tiny little 1 or 2 acre postage-stamp of a yard in the suburbs.

The above comment from Jason is correct - most real workers and ranchers have more sensible, utilitarian trucks that they actually do work with.

We all know the person commuting to and from the suburbs from their cubicle job has never touched a cow in their life, and so I repeat - the macho cowboy mystique that they are chasing is really just a joke.

But be my guest - do whatever you want with your money (err... I mean, with your HELOC)

I love seeing a big monster F-250/350/450 with:

a) nothing in the bed

b) no passengers, just the driver

c) extra points for an obese driver on their way to TGI Fridays

But even more funny and mind blowing is seeing a bunch of "King Ranch" and "Lariat" versions parked in suburban driveways and apartment building lots.

I wonder what a real rancher would think of the little postage stamp of land that these "King Ranch" drivers live on ...

There is only one relevant question, and that is, when, and how, can we dump full-resolution HD shows to unprotected files on an arbitrary location ?

(ie. when can I dump a full-res, non-DRM show to my unix fileserver)

None of this matters, none of this is useful, none of this is worth anything until there is a useful answer to the above question. I don't care how many disks you put in your lame MCE - either you control those shows for the long run or you don't.

It doesn't matter how cute your MCE+ATI+xbox toolchain is - crippled is crippled.

rsync is old hat to a lot of us - and even though a lot of folks have graduated to rdiff-backup or duplicity or unison, I still like the KISS philosophy and still use rsync for everything.

All of my personal machines, and as of late, all of my employers servers have their data replicated to offsite backup with rsync.net. We looked into strongspace and exavault, as well as the ridiculously overpriced offerings from places like Iron Mountain ... and in the end it was this:

http://www.rsync.net/philosophy.html

and this:

http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt

That sold us.

Now to get cygwin+python+duplicity running on my last remaining windows system...

ok.

So in addition to having an inferior (and gaudy) interior, the Bentley also has technically inferior materials in construction.

An interesting detail, but a detail nonetheless - all in all these are the same car. Same workers, same factory, same parent company.

I'm sure there's all sorts of interesting differences between a chevy Corsica and whatever "saab" they are building on that platform these days, but it's trivial.

Yes.

Audi A8 = VW Phaeton = Bentley Continental

They are the exact same car, just different body plates and interior pieces. In fact, I have seen a nice picture of the factory floor where they are assembling them side by side.

The w12 engine they all share is the same.

I think the fantastic interior of the A8 makes it the best pick of the three - no reason to blow 200k on the Bentley when it is the same car with a much more poorly designed interior.