You are correct.

While the tax property tax percentage is low in CA, the property values are insanely high which makes up for it. The monthly property tax alone that I pay on my 1400 sq ft townhouse would be enough to pay rent if I were still in MI.

Not just that, but CA also taxes you for the full amount when you buy a new car. Many states deduct the value of your trade-in since you already paid tax on it when you bought it.

Thin is good, but this is a *lot* wider. Not sure how I feel about this. Will have to wait and see, possibly check it out in the store first.

I LOLed :)

Agreed, especially with software patents. They're allowing trivial and/or vague patents that end up killing innovation.

I don't see the big deal. Scale should be irrelevant. If I copy the McDonald's sign but make it 5.4 times the size, I'm still copying the McDonald's sign. What Apple did makes them two phones look more similar due to scale, but the it doesn't really change the merits of the case.

I'd like to see a computer that looks like it was designed by Bang & Olufsen

"Military spending" is such a vague term and people too easily decide to bash it. It's not just about fighting wars, it's also about technological development.

But do these work with dimmers? That's where cfl's fail - even the "dimmable" ones work miserably. Not to mention the annoying whining noise they make.

I doubt they'd get rid of the connector. It's needed by a lot of third party accessories and it's a good fallback for charging on the road or in an emergency since it's simple, portable, and much faster than inductive charging.

The Roomba is nowhere near ideal. I'm not interested in any robot cleaner that randomly zig zags around. It's inneficient and doesn't work well with complex home layouts. Call me when you have a robot vacuum that does the following:

Where are you getting that number? E9X M3 oil changes are not $37 / year - try closer to $200 per change. The manufacturer of the velocity stack recommends doing it every 1,000 miles. The average person drives 10,000 miles per year. That's results in an extra $2,000 per year in oil changes alone - that's a far cry…

Unfortunately, the lack of filtration means you need to do an oil change every 1,000 miles. That's a lot of cash to be blowing to look cool. Probably better to save some dough and throw a centrifugal super charger on the M3.

I totally agree. Movie theaters need to do something about the annoying patrons before everyone else gets too fed up and stops going all together.

Wow that's unfortunately. I was thinking it was only an American thing. I can see how that would get immensely annoying fast.

To add to that. The built-in system is also able to navigate without a GPS signal because it knows your last location, how the wheels are moving, and the velocity of the car. Very nice when you live in metro areas and have to deal with tunnels, overpasses, and parking structures all the time.

2011+ BMWs offer iPhone integration and BMW Apps integration. You can actually see tweets and Facebook updates on the iDrive screen now. You can also use Google Maps to send addresses from your web browser to your car. Pretty neat stuff. At least with BMW, traffic updates are available even without smartphone…

I think your experience may have been worsened by American nav systems. They're horrible. I don't have to hit an "Accept" button and none of my options disable or enable depending on the speed of the car - I'd like to slap whomever came up with that one. My friend almost slammed into the back of another car in his…

I'd rather not be dinking around with my smartphone and trying to look at that tiny little screen when driving around not knowing where I'm going.