https://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2024/09/playing-with-big-boys.html
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Bob Rohrman Honda's insurance company in Indiana has been caused a scandal for reneging on a reward (a free two-year car lease ) to a college student based on a fraction of a second... but the dealership made good eventually
During the opening game of the season at Purdue University, Rohrman Automotive Group held its “Kicks for Cash” contest, in which a student must complete three field goals within 30 seconds to win a free two-year car lease. Zachary Spangler competed in the friendly contest and made all three goals to thunderous applause. A few days later, the dealership told Spangler he missed making the final kick by a fraction of a second, setting off a wave of backlash against Rohrman so publicly damning that the dealership has ultimately decided to offer the student the reward it promised him in the first place.
Rival dealerships started flooding Spangler with their own offers for a free two-year lease. Even a local restaurant got in on the fun, offering the farm management student a year of free burgers. The backlash and negative light cast on the dealer got to a point that convinced the Rohrman Group to do an about-face and offer Spangler the prize, after all.
Rival dealerships started flooding Spangler with their own offers for a free two-year lease. Even a local restaurant got in on the fun, offering the farm management student a year of free burgers. The backlash and negative light cast on the dealer got to a point that convinced the Rohrman Group to do an about-face and offer Spangler the prize, after all.
The dealer even changed the rules for future “Kicks for Cash” contests, eliminating the 30-second timer altogether. The dealership then claimed that Spangler’s “incredible kicks should be rewarded,”
The dealer ultimately offered Spangler a choice between a free two-year lease or a $5,000 prize. The student told the paper that, after talking over his choices with his parents, he decided to take the prize money instead of the lease. He added that he already has a working car.
The dealership says it will nonetheless donate another $5,000 dollars to the university’s Ross-Ade Brigade, to help fund student travel to away games.
See, I happen to have worked at a car dealership, and the fact is, these dealerships create publicity events, like this, but they don't carry through, the pay for insurance that MIGHT have to pay up, and so, in this case, like so many others, the insurance company is to blame for this screw over of the college student
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
Hong Kong is investigating tenants in social housing with luxury cars, because Beijing wants to make sure affordable homes are allocated to those who need them
Hong Kong is cracking down on richer tenants living in highly sought-after subsidized public housing, as the Chinese territory faces increased pressure from Beijing to widen access to affordable homes in one of the world’s most expensive property markets.
Authorities are targeting households whose assets exceed government limits. The monthly income ceiling for an application for a four-person family is HK$30,950 (US$3,970), and they should have net assets no greater than HK$590,000.
Tenants are required to vacate their units if monthly income rises above HK$154,750 or net assets exceed HK$3.1mn.
Average rents for social housing properties are HK$2,297.
The government has hired retired police officers to investigate tenants — some of whom have been seen driving Mercedes-Benz and BMW luxury vehicles — and are planning to offer bounties for tip-offs.
“Possession of expensive vehicles, especially shortly after
commencement of public housing tenancy, is one of the important clues in
detecting abuse,” a housing department spokesperson told the Financial Times last month, adding that officials had been inspecting housing estate car parks in response to complaints. In some cases, tenants were evicted after it was confirmed they had made false income or asset declarations.
Hong Kong, one of the world’s most unequal cities, has one of the most unaffordable housing markets. The ratio of the median home price to median household income was nearly 19, according to data last year from the Urban Reform Institute think-tank, far higher than in Singapore, the UK and the US. Beijing has claimed that tensions over the high cost of living contributed to citywide pro-democracy protests in 2019.
More than a quarter of the territory’s 7.5 million people live in subsidized public housing. Apartments vary in size, but the Hong Kong government recommends that flats for more than two people should be at least 280 sq ft. Waiting times for homes are almost six years.
In addition to social housing, more than 200,000 people in Hong Kong live in subdivided units known as “coffin flats”. Most are 140 sq ft or smaller, with average monthly rents of about HK$5,000.
Public housing in Hong Kong “acts as a key stabilizer” and safety net for low-income workers in a very expensive city, said Heron Lim, a Moody’s Analytics economist.
Hong Kong has also come under increasing economic strains as demand for land — the sale of which has accounted for about a fifth of annual government income — has fallen amid slowing growth and a property sector crisis in China.
Declining government revenues and rising construction costs have hit the territory’s ability to provide social housing, and authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing have put pressure on tycoons and developers to provide more affordable housing.
House prices in Hong Kong have fallen more than 20 per cent since the US Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in 2022, prompting banks in the territory — whose currency is pegged to the US dollar — to raise mortgage rates, depressing demand.
But house prices still remain high relative to income. The average price of a 430 sq ft apartment in Hong Kong is about HK$5mn.
Over the past two years, authorities have also reclaimed about 5,000 flats from tenants. “These [rich] people should simply not be allocated public housing in the first place,” said a public housing tenant in his 50s after officials inspected his housing estate.
I think this is similar to the prevalent attitude in the USA about poor people having expensive items, like cars, trucks, and SUVs
Ever heard of the Aerospike jet engine design? Polaris Aerospace is preparing to fly two new prototypes jets for its MIRA supersonic/hypersonic aerospike spaceplane platform
The aerospike engine in theory, should be effective from sea level all the way up into space.
The aim of the MIRA project is to develop a cargo and/or passenger-carrying spaceplane running a single stage to orbit (SSTO), that can takeoff and land on runways, and that's fully and rapidly reusable.
BMW revealed it will have to recall 1.5 million vehicles (including MINI and Rolls-Royce Sceptre) over a braking problem, costing it almost €1bn
Although BMW said the problem with the braking system in some new models was not a safety issue, the additional cost under warranties would be a “high three-digit million amount”
The update is the latest blow to Germany’s car industry, which is reeling from Volkwagen’s announcement that it may have to close factories. The closure of factories in Germany would be a first for the carmaker.
While BMW stressed that the brakes in the cars covered by the recall continue to work, and it does not know of any incident caused by the issue, it is understood that the fault in the electronic braking support system could affect how hard drivers have to press the brake pedal to stop the car.
The system, made by Continental, is used in a variety of BMW models that have come off the production lines since June 2022, including the BMW X1, X2 and X5 SUVs, the Mini Cooper and Countryman, and the luxury Rolls-Royce Spectre. It is understood only a small fraction of the cars potentially have the system malfunction. These would have been manufactured in BMW’s plants in Germany, the UK and France, as well as in the US, China, and South Korea.
The update is the latest blow to Germany’s car industry, which is reeling from Volkwagen’s announcement that it may have to close factories. The closure of factories in Germany would be a first for the carmaker.
While BMW stressed that the brakes in the cars covered by the recall continue to work, and it does not know of any incident caused by the issue, it is understood that the fault in the electronic braking support system could affect how hard drivers have to press the brake pedal to stop the car.
The system, made by Continental, is used in a variety of BMW models that have come off the production lines since June 2022, including the BMW X1, X2 and X5 SUVs, the Mini Cooper and Countryman, and the luxury Rolls-Royce Spectre. It is understood only a small fraction of the cars potentially have the system malfunction. These would have been manufactured in BMW’s plants in Germany, the UK and France, as well as in the US, China, and South Korea.
the South Carolina town "Isle of Palms" on the outer banks islands East of Charleston, finally figured out how to make money. Parking ticket enforcement, but, only if outsourced to a contractor.... I kid you not. The city employees utterly failed to do half as well at ticketing
in one third of a calendar year, (4 months) the contractor company outworked the city employees previous year (12 months)
From the beginning of May to Labor Day weekend, a four-month stretch that draws thousands of visitors to the beach, over 5,600 parking tickets were handed out on the Isle of Palms by the contacted company, more tickets than were issued in all of 2023. https://visitisleofpalmssc.com/isle-of-palms-parking/
As the summer bore on and visitors became familiar with the more-present parking enforcement, the number of tickets slowly decreased, from 1,900 in May to just over 750 by the end of August.
This contractor is on duty through 2026 according to the city administrator
The results of the tickets, after the 76/24 split? 300k, just in tickets.... the contractor gets the 24%, the city gets 76%... more than the cities entire year of income from the court system....
Forecasts included in the city’s 2025 budget estimated the city would see $300,000 from court-generated revenue for the fiscal year, which encompasses parking fines.
From May 1 to Aug. 31, the city surpassed this estimation in parking tickets alone.The contractor took over the job of parking enforcement in March, as city officials said outsourcing the service would free up the Isle of Palms Police Department to focus on high-priority calls for service and better visibility on the beaches.
IOPPD Sgt. Matthew Storen said the department is still gathering data to analyze how response times changed after contracting with PCI Municipal Services. (subtext, the cops can't prove this did anything positive other than more time eating donuts)
https://www.postandcourier.com/news/parking-tickets-isle-of-palms/article_dc15b014-6ebc-11ef-8bf4-fbf0ede46050.html
Deere settles US SEC bribery probe unit
Deere agreed to pay $9.93 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges that a Thailand subsidiary, Wirtgen Thailand, offered cash, meals, sham consulting fees, sightseeing ventures disguised as "factory visits" in Switzerland and other European countries, and massage parlor "entertainment." to win government business, and engaged in commercial bribery.
high-level managers and employees at the agricultural equipment and heavy machinery company's Wirtgen Thailand unit made improper payments to officials at entities including the Royal Thai Air Force and Thailand's Department of Highways.
Just another day in getting business done the old fashioned way
Monday, September 09, 2024
a 68 Charger is ready to get a new owner... it's been in a Kentucky barn since 1981
However, he left home and moved to South Carolina in 1981 specifically to focus on his career, so the Charger was parked in a barn. The owner is now willing to let it go and give someone else the chance to overhaul the car.
the Wall Street Journal had a catchy headline that caught my eye.... a Private Eye found the Trans Am he'd sold decades ago, in Alabama, and now he's restored it.
Gransden grew up near Buffalo, New York, and saved up to buy his 1979 model when he turned 17. He was already a talented trumpeter. After a few semesters at Fredonia State University, he toured with the Tommy Dorsey big band for a year (that band is still performing, though Dorsey died in 1956), lived in Manhattan, then relocated to Atlanta and entered Georgia State University to study music.
To cover tuition he sold his beloved special edition Firebird. The beast was a beautiful car, but the 400 cubic inch V-8 engine drank a lot of gasoline.
“I really needed a Honda,” said Gransden. “In Atlanta a nine-mile-per-gallon four speed Trans Am was not the way to go.” On the other hand, “I really didn’t want to sell that car.”
Robert Baitis, a transplant from Germany, bought it in 1993 for $7,500 then moved to an apartment in Huntsville, Alabama, where the Trans Am had to sit out in a parking lot most of the day.
Baitis felt bad about that, so he sold it to his mechanic in Alabama for $9,500, before moving back to Atlanta. The mechanic passed on, leaving the car to his widow, who remarried and sold the car again, to someone in a small town south of Huntsville.
After some bargaining with the brother, Gransden bought back his old car for $6,000. He sent it on a flatbed to Trans Am Specialties of Florida in Miami, where Deiters keeps perhaps 80 Trans Ams that he’s restoring, selling or buying.
Next came the pandemic. Gransden, who makes his money from performing, couldn’t perform. Deiters, who gets his parts through the supply chain, couldn’t get parts. Everything stopped.
Then Deiters’ warehouse caught fire. Thirteen priceless Trans Ams burned to the axles. His shop and showroom were half-destroyed. The business ground to a halt as Deiters rebuilt the structure. But Gransden’s Trans Am was spared. Said Deiters, “It not only survived sitting under that tree in Alabama, it survived the fire in my place.”
After four years in the shop, and many thousands in restoration costs, including a transplanted low-mileage 2006 GTO engine, Gransden’s Firebird came home.
United Airlines will end the 32-year print run of it's airline-published inflight magazine at the end of this month.
Pan Am was the biggest U.S. airline of the early 50s, and in 1952, introduced the world's first airline-published inflight magazine, that was 72 years ago
The idea was a hit, and almost every other airline copied it.
The publications at Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines seem to have met their end as a result of the pandemic.
The idea was a hit, and almost every other airline copied it.
The publications at Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines seem to have met their end as a result of the pandemic.
Then, in 2021, with the popularity of smart phones, tablets, I pads, an laptops, American Airlines stopped publishing a print edition of American Way, which had been around since 1966.
Now, UA stops their printed version of their magazine, Hemispheres, which started in 1992 when magazines really were picking up on popularity and becoming very popular.
Getting rid of print magazines will reduce CO2 emissions by 13,000 metric tons, according to the same internal memo.
https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/after-72-years-united-airlines-just-made-a-bittersweet-announcement-it-all-ends-this-month.html
https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/after-72-years-united-airlines-just-made-a-bittersweet-announcement-it-all-ends-this-month.html
I'm not surprised. The day Ken died, the it was the beginning of the end for his brand. Hoonigan as a brand was sold in 2021, and it's 1.2 billion in debt
Ken Block's brand was acquired by private equity in September 2021, then rolled into an aftermarket wheel company. Now, it's filing for Chapter 11.
Sunday, September 08, 2024
cool news to start the week with; an Alabama cop pulled a woman over for speeding, and then, they got to talking about life, and changed hers around for the better. And she didn't get a speeding ticket (as those really do not have good results, they simply are income generators for the government)
She told the Alabama state trooper who pulled her over (J.T. Brown) that she couldn't afford a ticket. She was broke and in a dead-end job.
Rutledge said their conversation "went on for about" 10 to 15 minutes, "just talking about different career paths."
Their conclusion was that Rutledge would make a great nurse. So Brown let her off with just a warning. And on it he wrote, "Promise me you'll go to scrub or nursing school, and slow down, and I won't give you a ticket."
However, Brown said he "never" imagined that she would take it as seriously as she did.
"As soon as he left, and as soon as I got to where I was going, I started pushing myself toward that career," Rutledge said. "And now I'm here."
Rutledge graduated last month from the two-year surgical technology program at Bevill State Community College in Jasper, Alabama.
it's been awhile, but I can finally post a good news story, and share a news article with a cool cop. Seriously, I look for these every day, and it's rare to find these stories.
the city of Austin now has 40 license plate readers up and running
In the two years since getting Flock, Deputy Hipolito said its helped with cases ranging from stolen cars to a homicide.
“A complete stranger on stranger type, random incident. We were able to find the suspect vehicle within just a matter of minutes by searching a particular color car that might have been in the area.”
“If we just enter a type of car or a partial license plate or a color of a car or a sticker, it’ll go back and search the database, and if that has been scanned anywhere in the county or anywhere in another city that has flocked cameras that we’re sharing information with, it will provide that information,” said Hays County Sheriff Deputy Anthony Hipolito.
The Pflugerville Police Department said it currently has 28 Flock cameras.
“A complete stranger on stranger type, random incident. We were able to find the suspect vehicle within just a matter of minutes by searching a particular color car that might have been in the area.”
“If we just enter a type of car or a partial license plate or a color of a car or a sticker, it’ll go back and search the database, and if that has been scanned anywhere in the county or anywhere in another city that has flocked cameras that we’re sharing information with, it will provide that information,” said Hays County Sheriff Deputy Anthony Hipolito.
The Pflugerville Police Department said it currently has 28 Flock cameras.
“Since implementing the technology, our community has experienced a significant reduction in incidents such as vehicle burglaries, shoplifting and catalytic converter thefts. Additionally, we’ve witnessed a notable increase in the apprehension of suspects involved in stolen vehicle cases, warrant arrests, and the successful recovery of stolen vehicles.” Pflugerville Police Department
Since installing its technology in 2022, the department said it has:
Recovered 153 stolen vehicles
Cleared 132 outstanding warrants
Seized 63 narcotic items and 20 firearms
Arrested 211 suspects for a total of 479 charges
PPD said its used the technology to enhance safety and support ongoing investigations.
Since installing its technology in 2022, the department said it has:
Recovered 153 stolen vehicles
Cleared 132 outstanding warrants
Seized 63 narcotic items and 20 firearms
Arrested 211 suspects for a total of 479 charges
PPD said its used the technology to enhance safety and support ongoing investigations.
https://www.kxan.com/news/license-plate-reader-cameras-operating-in-austin-under-new-updated-policy/
I'm of the opinion that the police can do their job without the computers and cameras... because power like tech has proven over and over to simply corrupt the people that use it. The police can certainly do their job without the computers and cameras, and the government (police work for a mayor, city governments report to county and state governments, and share info with the feds) doesn't need to track people day and night, ad nauseum
I'd forgotten that there was an episode of Supernatural with a high school musical version of the tv show... it's a hoot.
.jpg)
and the stage version of the Impala is pretty cool. The lyrics to the musical are a hoot.
Northrop Grumman X-47 Pegasus, a demonstration unmanned combat aerial vehicle that began as part of DARPA's J-UCAS program, 28 feet wide, 28 feet long
This kite-shaped UCAV was designed to meet several challenging mission parameters: low speed flying qualities and automatic carrier landing system capabilities
there were 5500 car companies in the USA before 1942. There were only 60 automakers in 2021, owned by 14 massive global companies
There were only 60 automakers in 2021, owned by 14 massive global companies
I think this indicates how once anyone could make anything, with zero lawyers and govt regulations, and now, the only way to get anything done is to have massive millions of dollars of investment, destroy a couple dozen units in crash tests.
%5B1%5D.jpg)
in the original comic strip, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, there was nothing like the tv show from the 1970s
I bought the 1970s complete collection, and just started reading it.. so, there is still 80 percent of the coffee table book to go, but here are some interesting vehicles so far
It turns out that the Buck Rogers comic strip was a reaction to the Jules Verne 20 thousand leagues, Edgar Rice Burroughs Martian tales, and Carson of Venus, and Nemo in Wonderland great sci fi/fantasy material that was getting popular in the 1920s and 30s
Newton Aero Circus, 1931
.webp)
It uses the basic principles of weight, momentum, and gravity to produce a unique repetitive motion; all without the use of a clockwork mechanism.
It was designed to carefully counter-balance the weight between a heavy cast iron zeppelin and two lighter monoplanes. Raising the zep to a precise height and then releasing it, causes the two planes to rise, revolve, and automatically self-reverse. To accomplish this it uses all of its original parts including a specific length of cotton cord.
The base of the toy is also cast iron. It's painted dark green with a yellow directional arrow in the center. The toy name, manufacturer name and address surrounded by fancy scrollwork were printed on one corner of the base with gold paint. The zeppelin was painted silver with a black pilot cabin and a red circle at the top.
The aeroplanes have a wooden fuselage, stiff pressboard wings, silver painted cast iron engine, aluminum propeller, and pressed steel landing gear with chrome plated metal wheels.
The rods which make it all work are made of painted pressed steel with chrome plated metal pulleys.
It seems to me the yellow posts stack to give the red or blue beams a high point to balance on so the planes can balance on that central pivot point to spin like they are flying
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)