Another flying car. This one from Terrafugia.
It appears to be very much on the “roadable plane” side of the roadable plane/flying car divide, and I rather expect that it will be like the rest: single digit production followed by an exit of the business.
In any case, here is a vid of their first flight.
It really appears to love the ground a lot, but that may be because of its relatively long wheel base relative to dedicated aircraft, requiring more force to rotate.
So, it looks like the end of the line for the very light jet manufacturer, the bankruptcy filing has been moved from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, though it appears that support for existing operators of the plane will continue in some form.
Kind of depressing, but very common.
There are very few new aviation prime contractors who have succeeded without a high level of state support.
They will continue normal operations for the moment.
My assessment is that this is not another sign of the death of newspapers, but rather what happens when a bunch of finance types decide to buy something with no money down…..and then the balloon payment comes due during a liquidity crunch.
About 2 years ago, Google made a policy decision to stop settling law suits with patent trolls, including going after them for legal fees.
I think that we will see a lot more of this from companies with deep pockets, because paying people to make them go away has resulted in an explosion of law firms whose business model is to find dodgy undeveloped patents, and then use those to extract nuisance money.
It’s a protection racket.
It’s a good development, but the real solution is to change the law:
Patents are not about property, they are about encouraging innovation,* and our current regime is discouraging innovation.
*The Copyright Clause of the Constitution, “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” (emphasis mine)
US spending on cell phones has now exceeded spending on residential land lines.
One wonders how much of this is increased cell phone uptake, and how much is consolidation and profiteering by the wireless providers.
Let me rephrase: Really Stupid People Make a Living At This???
Because it appears that Pajamas Media, a sort of Blogads for right wingers blew through its venture capital, and has told its bloggers that it is dumping them, because the next big thing is, “Internet television called Pajamas TV,” for which even stupider people will actually pay to listen to right wingers with faces made for radio.
The soon-to-be former members of Pajamas Media, such as Jeff G. of Protein Wisdom, are in full whine:
What this means is that as of April 1, I am officially out of work. So save going to a pay model, this site will likely have to shut down.
Small price to pay for helping PJM pick up an audience and credibility during its “formative years.”
I do this blog mostly to make regular notes for my annual newsletter (it’s about 5% of the content), and I’ve gotten a bit of money from Google ads, a $107.24 check in October, and I’ve been blogging since May, 2007.
The idea that someone could make a living at this is just a complete mind f%$#.
H/T TBogg, for letting me know that, “Nobody could have anticipated that Pajamas Media would sucker the rubes and then destroy teh intertubes.”
The Baltimore Examiner will cease publication on February 15.
It’s a free, and right wing, rag, that has continued to leave papers on my driveway whether I want them or not.
I’m not surprised. They set up shop in an expensive area, basically across the street from the Camden Yards ball park, and for a freebie paper, particularly one that sucked on the journalism side, they spent too much money on stuff like that.
Here is the memo to staff from management.
Adm. Dennis Blair, the nominee for Director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that, “one of his first duties if confirmed will be to transfer to federal employees any ‘inherently governmental’ work being done by contractors:
Blair said the government should rely on contract interrogators only in special circumstances, such as when a suspect speaks an obscure dialect.
“My strong preference is that interrogators in the intelligence world be a professional cadre of the best interrogators in the business,” Blair told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during his nomination hearing.
Committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she supported Blair’s call to reduce the intelligence community’s reliance on contractors. She referred to a 2007 Office of the Director of National Intelligence study that found that 27 percent of the intelligence work force is comprised of contractors, and an individual contractor costs the government $80,000 more on average than a career employee.
“I find this unacceptable,” Feinstein said. “Hiring contractors to interrogate detainees and contract psychologists to evaluate [them] is just the wrong thing for the government to do.”
Now if only we can apply this to the rest of the government, particularly the DoD.
We have the rumor that Fiat will be paid to take a stake in Chrysler:
Fiat, the stronger of the two, wouldn’t immediately put cash into Chrysler. Instead it would obtain its stake mainly in exchange for covering the cost of retooling a Chrysler plant to produce one or more Fiat models to be sold in the U.S., these people said. Fiat would also provide engine and transmission technology to help Chrysler introduce new, fuel-efficient small cars, they said.
Fiat is been trying to get back into the US market for years, and now they are getting a domestic factory for free.
If Fiat can get their Diesel model 500 or Panda into the US, both of which get something north of 50 mpg, they would have a real winner.
Update: the Freep confirms the deal.
H/T Calculated Risk.
Rather unfortunately for the South Korean Air Force, they will be buying a crippled radar set, because their development agreement with Lockheed-Martin gives them a veto on avionics fits, so as not to compete with the F-16.
So the Fighter/Attack variant, called the FA-50, will be used with a mechanically scanned radar, as opposed to the AESA radar that they desired.
Honestly, I am pleasantly surprised by the news that Thielert Aircraft Engines’ insolvency administrator has announced a (probably small) profit, and is looking for a buyer.
You can find a rundown of my previous stuff here, but here is the nickel tour:
What has happened over the past few months apparently is that the insolvency administrator, Bruno Kübler, has come to understand the market, reduced spares prices, and started to supply a limited amount of support under its old guarantees.
Additionally, they are looking to sell the engine in the future without the extensive guarantee, so as to avoid this problem in the future….It’s a change in business model, with the majority of future profits being in engine support, rather than the initial sale.
It’s still a promising technology, though I am still dubious of Thielert’s continued existence.
Well, it looks like cutting defense spending to help the economy may not work, S&P is threatening to downgrade New Zealand’s AA Credit Rating.
By the time this is over, I would not be at all surprised if we see a number of countries out there like Australia and New Zealand with rating in the “B”s.
Well, we’ve got another retailer bankruptcy, Shane Co., a Jeweler with 23 stores in 14 states….We’ll see a lot more of this.
The Dollar rose, because traders are expecting the ECB to cut rates.
Also, Oil is back below $40/bbl.
It appears that members of the adult entertainment industry, including Larry Flynt, are looking for a federal bailout.
I think that they should just become a bank holding company.
They could give out something much more interesting than toasters to new account holders.
Here we have a story where Macy’s, Gannett and the New York Times are facing problems servicing their debt.
Why do they have the debt? Because they borrowed money for stock buybacks so as to bump the price of their shares. (The New York times also blew the money on a shiny new headquarters)
They borrowed money for a stock buyback?
I can understand diverting profits to do so, it is an activity similar to paying dividends, but borrowing money to buy back stock?
Seriously, everyone in senior management who touched this decision needs to be fired.
The first flight has been been pushed back to 2Q 2009, and they are laying most of the blame on the strike, though my guess would be that they would have had this push-back with or without the machinists strike, as they still have fastener problems.
Bank of America and JP Morgan loaned a total of about 1¾ million to the owners, with specific stipulations that it be paid for, “60 days severance wages, vacation pay and a two-month extension of health insurance.”
Still, the more I hear, the more I think that the banks were set up by the owners, who were attempting to close down the plant, because they set up a new one down the road.
This is the third time since 2004, they, as both KB and FAO Schwartz, did a twofer in 2004.
Filing for bankruptcy as a tow store less than 3 weeks before Christmas?
Looks like liquidation this time.
Here is the obligatory scare quote:
Sales were little changed from Feb. 3 until Oct. 4, KB Toys said. Since then, sales have dropped almost 20 percent, the company said.
Sales fell as the Xmas season buying frenzy ramped up….Not good.
It appears that the owner may have been planning to shut down the plant and skip town for some time. It appears that, “company managed by the wife of Republic Windows and Doors owner Richard Gillman recently purchased an Iowa plant that manufactures similar products.”
Echo Windows and Doors was created two weeks ago and lists Sharon Gillman as its manager, according copies of records obtained by the Daily News from the Iowa Secretary of the State. According to Cook County property tax records, Sharon Gillman is Richard Gillman’s wife.
The couple purchased a $2.6 million Oak Street condo together in 2007, according to property records.
The Gillimans could not be reached for comment today. But this afternoon, Richard Gillman released a statement confirming the creation of the new company.
Also, Amy Zimmerman, who has served as Republic’s marketing director, is now listed as the contact on the newly registered echowindows.com domain name. She refused comment today.
As much as it pains me to say this, it may very well be that Bank of America is blameless in all this. The Gillimans may have set up a second company to find cheap non-union plant in Iowa, and then screwed up their credit line with BoA on purpose, so they could get out from under things like COBRA, owed vacation time, and other benefits.
In the mean time it appears that Chase, which had a 40% stake in Republic, is actually doing the right thing: it has pledged $400,000 to the employees there.
Still, this is getting weird, and if this is a scam by the Gillimans, and it looks increasingly so, there may very well be a criminal fraud case against them.
The numbers are in, and total CEO compensation was up 7.5% in 2008, which, if you can believe it, is the smallest amount, and the first non double digit rise, since 2001.
$2.05 million/year….for losing money, and the rest of the country is getting benefit cuts, 401(k) match cuts, hour cuts, and losing their jobs.
Delightful.
It looks like the New York Times will borrow about $225 million against the value of its headquarters building:
The Times Company owns 58 percent of the 52-story, 1.5 million-square-foot tower on Eighth Avenue, which was designed by the architect Renzo Piano, and completed last year. The developer Forest City Ratner owns the rest of the building. The Times Company’s portion of the building is not currently mortgaged, and some investors have complained that the company has too much of its capital tied up in that real estate.
The company has two revolving lines of credit, each with a ceiling of $400 million, roughly the amount outstanding on the two combined. One of those lines is set to expire in May, and finding a replacement would be difficult given the economic climate and the company’s worsening finances. Analysts have said for months that selling or borrowing against assets would be the company’s best option for averting a cash flow problem next year.
(emphasis mine)
Let’s calmly take a look at this.
The New York Times dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into a new building in downtown Manhattan, buying it with cash, and now they are concerned about liquidity.
The Times had a building, but for some reason they had to buy a new one, and it had to be in Manhattan, and it had to have everyone in it.
There is no reason, for example, that advertising could not have been put in Brooklyn, or White Plains, or for that matter, Mumbai.
The same goes for the bureaus that cover the other boroughs.
But management wants their shining castle in Manhattan.
This makes me miss Steve Gilliard, because his writing on Salon.com talked about this sort of stupid egotism in detail, and I’m sure that he would have had a field day writing about this.