Why SXSW Made a Big Splash in 2016

Austin’s a city that prides itself on its weirdness. Add in South by Southwest and thing get even more bizarre.

There are no official attendance numbers yet, but by the time the interactive, film and music festival (which is currently celebrating its 30th year) wraps up on Sunday, more than 135,000 people are expected to filter through town. And while there’s the usual grumbling about the show getting too big and straying from its roots (something that’s been a common refrain for years), attendance keeps growing. Last year, the show brought in more than $317 million to the local Austin economy.

With the still going at full speed, there’s plenty to see, learn and do. If you couldn’t make it to Texas this year, here’s a snapshot of what’s been going on.

summary: Who was there, what happened.

Q:
US and Serbian armies to co-operate
Condoleezza Rice, the USÂ secretary of state and Boris Tadic, the Bosnian president, signed the Status of Forces Agreement on Thrusday.

ThisÂ will allow the US military to train Serbian forces and conduct exchange programs.

US officials played down the pact, suggesting initial cooperation was likely to focus on training programs that addressed issues like civilian relations with the military.

"It's not talking about combat techniques or that sort of thing, it's really civil-military relations, how does that work in a democracy," Sean McCormack, the USÂ state department spokesman, told reporters on Thursday.

He and other US officialsÂ said they saw the agreement as a first step towards putting Serbia on the road towards joining the Nato.

Tadic said he hoped the pact would lead to closer economic ties with the US, which in June suspended $7 million in aid to Serbia because of its failure to arrest and extradite Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic.

"Without cooperation in the defence sector, we are not going to have cooperation in the economy," Tadic said as he and Rice signed the agreement at the State Department.

The aid cutoff was more a political gesture of Washington's annoyance at Belgrade than a financial penalty because the United States continues to provide substantial financial assistance to Serbia.

Mladic is charged alongside former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic with genocide forÂ their alleged role inÂ the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys and the 1992-1995 siege of Sarajevo, which killed about 10,000 civilians.

UN chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte says Mladic is hiding in Serbia with the help of army and intelligence hard-liners.
What was this article about?
A:
The US has signed a military cooperation pact with Serbia despite strains over Belgrade's failure to help bring accused Bosnian Serb war criminals to trial.

Classy Chassis - Forbes.com

While American auto titans go begging for their lives, England's tiny Morgan Motor Co. keeps making snazzy, old-school roadsters straight out of Bugsy Malone. Founded in 1909 when Harry Frederick Stanley Morgan (a.k.a. H.F.S.) assembled his first three-wheeled vehicle in a small repair shop, Morgan is the planet's oldest privately held automaker. It's been a family affair ever since. Now at the helm: Charles Morgan, H.F.S.' 57-year-old grandson, a tall man with a deep voice, hurried gait and taste for pinstriped suits.

Morgan cranks out only 700 cars a year at a modest 5-acre factory in hilly Malvern, where potholes are marked with fluorescent chalk. Its most popular model is the $37,500 4/4 Sport--in production since 1936, with a 14-month backlog--marked by a signature bulbous nose, owl-eye headlights, tiny windshield and 1.6-liter engine that rivals the 30% heavier Mazda (other-otc: MZDAF.PK - news - people ) Miata. The wait for the curvaceous $151,000 Aero 8--with an all-aluminum chassis and better power-to-weight ratio than the Porsche (other-otc: PSEPF.PK - news - people ) 911 GT3--is nine months.

Having a distinctive product always helps; staying small and flexible does, too. In the early 1930s Morgan dropped the price of its original three-wheeler by two-thirds, to ??95 ($6,200 in today's dollars), as rivals stepped up mass production. H.F.S. didn't try to overtake them: He introduced the 4/4 but made few, thus avoiding an inventory glut when the Great Depression hit. Controlled reinvestment served him well the next decade, too, when the government leaned on Morgan to make airplane parts for World War II.

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Peter Morgan, son of H.F.S., took the wheel during the second half of the century, keeping production steady while cultivating international demand. When sales flattened in the 1980s as Japanese companies got more of the British market, Peter's son Charles decided to pitch in, ditching his job as a television cameraman to snag a degree in car manufacturing at Coventry University. "I was woefully unqualified to manufacture cars," he admits.

But Charles knew enough to focus on efficiency over expansion. Workers used to stand around, waiting for a parade of chassis to be completed before they worked on the body panels (strengthened, as they always have been, with frames of ash, a light wood that helps absorb shocks and cuts down on weight). Charles adjusted the assembly line so that more of each car was worked on at any given time. As a result, production time per vehicle fell to two weeks from three months, boosting output by a third, to 550 cars a year, and giving a quick lift to Ebitda, from 5% of revenues to 10%.

The next big challenge came in early 2000 when the European Union introduced a wave of safety and emissions standards (the U.K. has slightly looser laws). Morgan crashed ten cars to meet the rules, a huge but smart investment as the continent now accounts for 60% of the company's top line.

Despite the current crisis, Morgan is gaining ground. Charles figures sales will hit $38.5 million this year, up 14% from 2008. Morgan makes only cars to order; it sells via 18 dealers in Britain, 13 in Europe, 6 in the U.S. (only for the Aero 8) and a handful elsewhere. Customers must put down a nonrefundable 20% of the purchase price to secure a "build slot." Cancelations are rare, about five a year.

Better yet, Morgan carries no debt and hasn't let go of a single one of its 155 employees in the recession. Meanwhile, British automakers Jaguar and Land Rover are seeking government handouts. Bentley, which makes 7,600 cars a year, recently cut back to a three-day workweek on one of its lines, while Aston Martin in Warwickshire chopped its workforce in half to 600.

On the distant horizon: the Morgan LifeCar, powered by a hydrogen fuel cell supplemented by stored electricity. The British government paid half the $2.5 million in development costs to bring a working model to the 2008 Geneva auto show, while Morgan and four other partners, including the University of Oxford and British defense firm Qinetiq, covered the rest. Full production of the aluminum car, about half the weight of a conventional steel vehicle, isn't planned for another three years.

This year Morgan Motor will be 100 years old. It might even outlive the hydrogen car.

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summary:

Show your work and conclude with the exact phrasing "Therefore, the final answer is [answer]." where [answer] is just the final number or expression that solves the problem.
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Morgan Motor has banked on sleek designs and small production for a century.