Das Tub?

There hasn't been a great submarine movie since Das Boot in 1981. That's why, when I heard of Das Tub, I had high hopes that it would be as good as Das Boot. Is it? Well, you be the judge.

Das Tub from Media Design School on Vimeo.

The Next Great Escape in Los Angeles

Ford used the Los Angeles Auto Show for the official unveiling of the next generation Ford Escape. This is the vehicle most of the world knows as the Kuga. It's less boxy than the current Escape. Being boxy never hurt the Escape's sales. It's been in the top two or 3 in its category for its entire run. The current 2.5 liter 4-cylinder will be the base engine. There will be 1.6 liter and 2.0 liter ecoboost (turbocharged) engines available as well. The hybrid appears to be dead for now.

Photo via Jalopnik.com

If you think I have a marginally relevant video for you, then I guess you know me too well. Actually, I have two. You see, when I first thought of the Ford Escape I thought of Rupert Holmes' The Pina Colada Song. That song always creeped me out though, so I didn't want to link to a video of his version of the song. What other versions are there on Youtube? Well, I found these two, and they both creeped me out even more. I figure since nobody will be likely to play through the whole song of either of these, it's like only having one. You know what I mean?

Honey Badger takes Two Human Lives

This video is almost a year old now, and I've been meaning to post it for a long time but I didn't get around to it. In the past 10 months or so a whole meme has grown up around it. I have to say that it deserves all of its 24 million views. That's roughly two human lifetimes worth of Honey Badger. Honey Badger Don't Care. (language alert)

Jimmy Fallon Does Morrison

Check out this clip where Jimmy Fallon and the Roots do a spot-on impression of the Doors doing the theme to "Reading Rainbow".

The New Incentive Wars have Begun

I actually watched some brain rot television tonight, and the level of auto advertising was up to pre-carpocalypse standards. There were lots of Chevy, Kia and Volkswagen 0-0-0 deals. Nissan got its licks in as well. It looks like the car manufacturers have some ambitious year-end numbers that they want to meet, and they are discounting to move the metal. If you are contemplating getting a different car, you might find getting a new car is about as cheap as a used one on a monthly basis. Edmund's Deals of the Month page was last updated for October 20, 2011, so they should refresh it soon. That's always a good place to start when looking at competitive incentives. Also, take a look at autonews.com.

Whatever you do, be careful on your test drive.

New Buzzword of the Decade: THORIUM

As in: "I'm so thorium, I can hardly pithium."

If you remember the old Batman television show from the 60's, whenever they climbed into the Batmobile (coolest car ever), Robin would call out "atomic batteries to power,turbines to speed" before they set out. As it so happens, maybe Batman was just 50 years or so ahead of its time. How's that? Atomic powered cars might actually be practical. The key is, you can't use uranium or plutonium, rather, the best bet is the (mildly radioactive) common, rare-earth metal, thorium. Thorium is fairly common in the United States, but right now there isn't enough demand for there to be much active mining. Thorium has enough atomic energy stored within so that 8 grams of thorium could power a typical car for its life time. Back in the bad old days of the carpocolypse, in January 2009, Cadillac came out with a concept car (right) to be fueled by a thorium/laser powerplant. (see pic from ubergizmo.com)

For a detailed layperson's article on thorium reactor technology, check out this article at Wired.com.

A marginally relevant video perhaps? Of course

An Xtranormal Explanation of the Mortgage Crisis

This is from late 2010, but I think it explains the basic ideas pretty well.

Auto Finance Companies Making a Comeback
- Originating More Loans than Banks or Credit Unions

From Collections and Credit Risk comes a news item that auto finance companies have drastically increased their share of the auto loan market in the past two years, up 47% overall. Finance companies are originating 38.5% of auto loans versus 17.6% for banks and credit unions.

That finance companies have increased market share should come as no surprise. In 2008 Chrysler Financial and GMAC were severely limited during the bailout. Chrysler Financial ended up biting the dust and the auto arm of GMAC was replaced by Ally Financial. There was shrinkage and consolidation among other players. Most notably, Santander acquired Drive Financial.

How is this important to consumers and consumer lawyer? The finance companies generally buy installment sales contracts originated by the dealers. Traditionally, the dealers would try to write these contracts at as high an interest rate as possible, and the dealers would be rewarded with a yield spread premium kickback from the lender based upon the interest rate. I have heard anecdotally that the dynamic has changed, and the dealers actually have to pay the finance companies to take the deal now. I don't know if that is true, but it does seem like there are more "yo yo" sales going on where the dealer calls the customer back under the premise that the financing has fallen through.

I suggest that it is more important than ever for consumers to avoid financing through the dealer and to arrange your own financing separately through the bank or credit union of your choice. Lenders will bid to get your business at sites like bankrate.com and lendingtree.com. I have found that in most cases, going with an internet consolidator like these sites or by going through your local credit union, you can usually get the best deal and the most straightforward deal at that. If you are not comfortable negotiating a deal at the dealer, many credit unions offer a "car buying service" that will result in a cleaner, better deal than going in to the dealer with no experience.

What's all this fuss about Independent Foreclosure Reviews?

Among an outcry of citizens over bungled mortage servicing, bungled modifications and bungled foreclosures, the Obama administration last week announced a program that will extend independent mortgage reviews for homeowners who were in any stage of the foreclosure process during 2009-2010. The best coverage that I've seen on the topic comes from propublica.org. (Not surprising.) The review process will be undertaken by eight contractors hired by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve. Note that the OCC has not exactly been a consumer-friendly institution in the past. That's why much of its oversight authority is being transferred to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

I am skeptical of these reviews. It can take an experienced consumer attorney a week of solid work to evaluate the most easily ascertainable flaws in a mortgage. You need to see information that comes from different sources and is stored in different places. You have to look at the consumer's documents, the mortgage broker's documents, the title company's documents, the originator's documents, the servicer's documents, the public record of mortgage transfers, and the loan securitization documents. Finally, to determine a pattern and practice, you have to cross-reference suspected violations from one loan file to another. In short, a complete review costs thousands of dollars. to do this with millions of mortgages will cost billions of dollars. I don't know how much they've budgeted for this task, but it is likely not enough.

The Onion Scores with "Ancient Job Creators"

Great satire here:

WASHINGTON—A team of leading archaeologists announced Monday they had uncovered the remains of an ancient job-creating race that, at the peak of its civilization, may have provided occupations for hundreds of thousands of humans in the American Northeast and Midwest.

According to researchers, these long- forgotten people once flourished between western New York state and Illinois, erecting highly distinctive steel and brick structures wherever they went, including many buildings thought to have held hundreds of paid workers at a time.

"It's truly fascinating—after spending a certain number of hours performing assigned tasks, the so-called 'employees' at such facilities would receive monetary compensation that allowed them to support themselves and their families," said archaeologist Alan H. Mueller, citing old ledgers and time-keeping devices unearthed at excavation sites in the region. "In fact, this practice seems to have been the norm for their culture, which consisted of advanced tool users capable of exploiting their skills to produce highly valued goods and services."