Friday, July 14, 2023

Alabama didn't even issue vehicle titles until '75 or '76

 who knew?

But then, Alabama was never at the front of the line to accept quaint ideas until decades after the rest of the nation was fully day to day comfortable with things like civil rights, public school desegregation, and against draconian convict lease contracts, chain gangs, illegal vibrators etc etc. (who would ever guess the topic of sex toys would ever be posted here?) 

BMW owns the trademark to the Triumph Motor Company, and had the Makkina design house craft this electric concept on a BMW i3s platform to pay homage to the record-setting Triumph TR2 MCV575 “Jabbeke” from 1953.



The Triumph TR2 MVC575 “Jabbeke” claimed notoriety when it broke the land speed record for production cars under 2.0 liters. It happened in May 1953 with a pre-production prototype car wearing streamlined parts.

Rollercoaster news: A woman was standing in the waiting line and was seriously injured when she was struck in the head by a metal bracket that flew off the Cedar Point "Top Thrill Dragster" is suing the park for negligence.


Hawes was waiting in line to ride the Top Thrill Dragster with her father when the metal plate dislodged from a train and struck her in the head.

The object was an "L-shaped" bracket roughly the size of a man's hand that had been attached to the back of a train car, state investigators said.

Bolts had secured the bracket in place, hovering just over the track as the train zoomed along. A series of sensors monitoring the coaster showed it reached 120 mph in 3.8 seconds and shot up the ride's 420-foot climb for a ride that lasted less than 20 seconds

During its descent, the bracket hit the coaster's track and came off, Miran said.

An investigation by the ODA found that half of the bolts that secured the bracket to the train body had also dislodged.

She suffered a traumatic brain injury, bleeding and brain swelling, according to the complaint. Hawes was also treated for a right-side open skull fracture with a cerebral laceration, contusions and loss of consciousness that exceeded 24 hours, according to the lawsuit.

She was rendered "permanently disabled," no longer able to reach potential earning capacity – more than $1.2 million, according to the suit. Her medical costs soared to more than $2 million. Future medical care and daily living assistance could cost an additional $10 million.

Comparison testing... is anyone in the media (social or commercial news) testing to prove what works better?

I know it must be a legal brick wall for companies to state that they've tested the competition, and make a better product (9 out of 10 drs recommend our brand) 

But is any unbiased 3rd party comparison testing stuff?

Which are better performing brakes? Baer, or Wilwood?
Are headers made by Doug performing better than those of Hooker, Hedman, etc?

Stuff like that where data is clear, simple, and easily shows exactly how a product performs the function, and between a couple of brands, the better performing is simply the one with better numbers

Stone Harbor’s (New Jersey) parking ticket violations increased by more than 1,600% from the previous year following the launch of the ParkMobile app

Stone Harbor police slapped 893 parking tickets on windshields last month, more than all parking violations written in 2022, after the pricey Jersey Shore resort town switched to a cashless app-based payment system that has frustrated newcomers and less tech-savvy locals

MG, owned by China's SAIC, was debuted at Goodwood, and is due to go on sale in Europe and China in just a few months, becoming the first mass-market electric drop-top of the decade.


It will be available in single- and dual-motor form, with the base RWD version set to offer 310 hp, while the dual-motor version will dial that up to 536 hp. 

It will also offer a couple of battery options, with the smaller of the two offering 64 kWh, expected to land a bit south of the 300-mile mark, while the larger 77-kWh unit should be able to stretch its range up to 370 miles.


Ford and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union have been engaged in a bit of a public war

the UAW released a scathing video aimed at what it calls “bloated” CEO pay amid soaring profits. 

Ford CEO followed up that release with an op-ed discussing several wage-related issues,

 which the UAW then responded to with its own take on that matter while also providing its top three goals – stronger job security, the end of tiered pay systems, and the return of a cost of living adjustment that was eliminated years ago.

 However Ford is firing back by claiming that it has a one billion dollar labor cost disadvantage in the U.S. compared to its rivals

Ford reportedly manufactures 80 percent of its vehicles in the U.S., and it also employs the most UAW workers of any automaker – 57,000 – which is around 11,000 more than General Motors and 16,500 more than Stellantis. The Blue Oval has also added or retained 14,000 UAW jobs since 2019, which is 5,600 more than it committed to in its most recent contract with the union.

That involves spending $1.4 billion more than expected from its current contract, as well as converting 14,100 temporary workers to permanent status.

The Bike Riders movie just locked picture, and will probably be released at the end of 2023... it stars Boyd Holbrook (played the Corinthian in the Sand Man) Tom Hardy, Norman Reedus, Michael Shannon, and Austin Butler... it's about 1960s bikers, filmed in Cincinatti


Writer and director Jeff Nichols adapted the photography book The Bike Riders into a story of the rise of a Midwestern motorcycle club through the lives of its members.

If this sounds familiar, it was about a year ago that I learned of this movie, and posted about the source material https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2022/08/tom-hardy-is-set-to-lead-movie.html

Written by Nichols, the film will be an original story based on the photographic book by Danny Lyon. Lyon’s book, which is now considered a groundbreaking and influential piece of work, showcased a series of photographs featuring motorcyclists in 1968. The film will take place in the 1960s, set to focus on the transformation of a Midwestern motorcycle club rebelling against societal norms in a tight-knit community into a dangerous gang.

It's this weird thing where I don't want to just glorify it, but at the same time, there's something so glorious about what they're doing, and beautiful and free. Like all of those things ... And they're not affectations, they're real. All the things that biker culture ... And what I'm talking about making a movie about is, it's transition from this golden age of where it was less criminal and it was more just a place for outsiders to gather, but then how that kind of morphed and turned into somewhat more of a criminal organization.

So it's [a matter of] how to treat them, because they're not always doing good things, and how to not make that too beautiful and fun. How to make the right parts beautiful, and all that is about, I think, how we view them. Who the point of view character in that film is. And I've got ideas, two different ideas. But also, it doesn't take place in the south, it takes place in the Midwest. It's a completely different voice than I'm used to writing in.

things learned watching and listening to Downey's Dream Cars

Abrams tank weighs the same as a 747

Downey once stole a school bus

Domino's is teaming up with Uber Eats, officially

Domino’s is finally coming around to delivery apps. Despite pioneering online ordering and engaging in all sorts of quirky, delivery-related antics (remember the easy order button?), the pizza chain couldn’t escape the allure of Uber Eats, which it signed a deal with. Domino’s workers will still be able to make the deliveries as part of the agreement that will be piloted this fall.

the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa






https://muscatinejournal.com/muscatine/ragbrai-to-pass-through-west-liberty/article_382443ae-3417-5e05-81b8-8e66dcf9bf33.html
https://ragbrai.com/ragbrai-l-full-route/

NYPD seems to be aware it's doing a terrible job, but, unwilling to be transparent, and get more than it's current (and past) amount of criticism, probably because there is no way to improve the professionalism of those with a badge (Professionalism is 1/3rd of their motto on every NYPD vehicle door)

but there is a way to get around the NYPD silent treatment concerning what the police do, and when. 

Monitor their every move. The NYPD refuses to make the dispatched locations public info, on their own, without a court order. 

But thanks to tech, and a lot of it, everywhere the NYPD vehicles go, is recorded, legally, by dash cams. 

So, fuck you NYPD Chief Maddrey. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/24/nyregion/nypd-police-commissioner-sewell-maddrey.html The info is out there, and there's nothing you can do about it. 

A team of researchers from Cornell Tech analyzed nearly 25 million dashboard camera photos from drivers for rideshare services — like Uber and Lyft — to identify where police cars are deployed in New York City.

The photos themselves came from Nexar, a dashcam company that sells to rideshare drivers. The company made the photographs available to researchers in 2020, and the images in question were taken throughout the five boroughs between March 4 and Nov. 15 of that year.

The team identified some limitations of their work. Their approach, for example, only looks at city street images, meaning that police officers in subway stations can’t be monitored.

A 21 yr old thief has been busted for illegally towing a dozen vehicles off the streets of Brooklyn and Queens and selling them for scrap metal, police say.

Payne targeted Hondas, Nissans, Volkswagens, Kias and Fords as part of his audacious scheme, according to cops. He always made sure the cars and SUVs he nabbed were more than eight years old so he wouldn’t have to provide the Long Island junkyard he towed them to with the vehicle’s title when selling it for scrap, police say.

It took 3 months for NYPD to arrest this guy, as it seems they do not investigate car theft.

The number of car thefts in the city have jumped 18% so far this year. As of July 2, the NYPD has investigated 7,624 car thefts this year compared with 6,455 during the same time frame last year
.

Brad Pitt's Formula 1 movie is filming track scenes, and quite a bit of info, and several photos are released

Pitt plays a racer who competed during the '90s but experienced a "horrible crash, craps out and disappears, then he's racing in other disciplines."

Javier Bardem plays a pal of Pitt's character, a team owner overseeing a last-place team. "They're 21-22 on the grid, they've never scored a point, but they have a young phenom, played by Damson Idris, and they bring in Pitt's character as kind of a Hail Mary




hackers working for Russia's foreign intelligence agency used a fake car advert to try and get past the cyber security dozens of diplomats at embassies in Ukraine



The hacker targeted diplomats working in at least 22 of the roughly 80 foreign missions in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv 

 "In mid-April 2023, a diplomat within the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs emailed a legit flyer to various embassies advertising the sale of a used BMW 5-series sedan located in Kyiv".

The hackers intercepted and copied that flyer, and a gallery of photos of the car, and embedded it with malicious software, then sent it to dozens of other foreign diplomats working in Kyiv, listing the diplomat's BMW for a lower price - 7,500 euros - in their fake version of the advert, in an attempt to encourage more people to download the photo gallery malware, that would give the hackers remote access to the embassy devices.

Why are airfield restaurants so common across the United States? It's not the food, it's the required flight hours needed to stay current on licensing!


Part of flying is you have to maintain currency, where pilots regularly fly and log specific tasks to stay eligible to fly.

If you’re going out and just trying to do some practice maneuvering, taking off and landing, or other instrument work, it’s an excuse to go out, do that, have lunch somewhere, and then train on your way back as well.

These restaurants are normally far less busy than others in town, as they are simply off the beaten path, without common city streets going past their parking lot, and instead being on the airport. 

San Diego's Montgomery Field has one, Casa Machado, and it's the monthly meeting location for the San Diego Mopar Club. On the other side of the runway, is a cool little restaurant, the 94th Aero Squadron

Typically these restaurants have excellent viewing windows for just sitting and watching the planes and helos come and go

NASA and Lockheed Martin are nearly finished with their supersonic test plane...


The space agency believes that the engine will allow the aircraft to fly without any sonic booms,  to prove the feasibility of supersonic flights over cities, a requirement for getting commercial airlines supersonic flights over the USA, probably other countries as well, to drastically reduce travel time for those who can afford it

As part of the upcoming test, the plane will fly over several populated areas and specialists from the agency will gather information on how people react to sound.

People are expected to hear a soft popping sound, comparable in volume to the sound of a car door closing. The space agency will pass on the data it collects to international and US regulators in the hope of gaining approval for supersonic commercial flights over land.