As someone who doesn't really understand the nuts and bolts but still cares, and wishes we had better (less polluting / more efficient) cars, thanks for all the explanations and discussion!

I'm assuming that a big difference (from the driver's standpoint) between the Leaf and the Volt is that the Volt can do more than 100 miles at a time? (edit: maybe not?)

From the driver's standpoint, I'd say the big difference is that you can drive a Volt on gasoline if you need to. The Leaf has great range for an all-electric, but you're still limited on how far you can go.

Or more generally, the Volt can replace a regular car with no problem while a Leaf is more of a niche vehicle.

The Leaf has great range for an all-electric, but you're still limited on how far you can go.

It all comes down to the infrastructure. You have to make sure you can plug it in to recharge. There's no safety net. If you're going to a cabin in the woods that has no electricity, you probably don't want to take the Leaf.

The infrastructure discussion is the same one I was having ten years ago when I worked with Honda to market the CNG Civic. The OEMs don't want to make the vehicles if they can't be fueled, and the fuel providers don't want to put in the refueling stations if there are no vehicles to use them. It's one big game of chicken, and innovation is stifled as a result.

Oh my God.

For over a year, my outgoing Comcast e-mails have been delayed for five minutes. Many incoming e-mails are also delayed for five minutes, including LJ e-mails (and that recently jumped to forty-five minutes for no apparent reason). I have had many frustrating chat sessions that produced zero results.

Recently, I noticed that for some reason, any e-mails I sent regarding AMWA business were sent immediately. It was really strange and made no sense. I wondered if "AMWA" was getting it through the filters. That wasn't it. And then I realized that when I send e-mails for business, I use my business signature rather than my personal signature.

So I sent an e-mail with my business signature. It sent immediately. And then I started doing some testing, and I discovered that it was the blog URL in my signature that was responsible. I removed it, and my e-mails sent immediately. I put a blogspot URL in the text of my e-mail, and the five-minute delay returned.

WHAT THE FUCK, COMCAST. WHAT THE LIVING FUCK.

Do you (or does Comcast) have a virus checker that might be examining your links for problems?

It has to be Comcast, Liese, since I have the same issues whether I'm using Outlook at home or the webmail.

Sunil, Try converting it with tinyurl, see if they slow that down.

You need to send this info to Wired, Engadget, or Gizmodo. They probably would love to check this out.

If you look at the full headers of your messages, you can track your email's progress by looking at the "Received:" headers. You should be able to pinpoint where the message is getting delayed.

Not so hypothetical question: say you're in a humanities research institute. Which softwares and hardwares you couldn't live without, and which would make you life easier? What would you like to see there, tech-wise?

Dream big. I want to see if there's anything beyond the OCR/DVD/VCR things that might make their lives easier.