Rear Windows that don't roll down - 1983 malibu

Back in the 80s, GM made the Malibu without rear windows that roll down. Instead, you had to use a small vent window. What a great idea!

And don't forget the "Iraqibu", a Malibu taxi made just for Iraq.


http://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1983-chevrolet-malibu-hope-you-dont-have-claustrophobia/


http://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/automotive-history-snapshot-1981-chevrolet-malibu-iraqi-taxi/

Basketball kids from China

The Hubble XDF eXtreme Deep Field

Hubble Goes to the eXtreme to Assemble Farthest-Ever View of the Universe 9/25/12

Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The XDF is a small fraction of the angular diameter of the full moon.

The new full-color XDF image is even more sensitive, and contains about 5,500 galaxies even within its smaller field of view. The faintest galaxies are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/xdf.html

The Pokewalker

I came across the Pokewalker recently and was curious how it would work as a pedometer device. According to an Iowa University study, it's one of the most accurate pedometers.

I thought it was kind of cool how you'd have to walk to unlock some of the game's features. Sadly, I don't have Pokemon Soul Silver so I can't really configure the pokewalker to set the time or anything else. Apparently, there's an IR sensor built into the game cartridge.

So how'd it read after a day of use?

Omron HJ-720IT: 11682
Pokewalker: 14224

I like the concept of "unlocking" game play using exercise. How about a game console or a TV that doesn't work unless you walk 10,000 steps per day?

Of course, there's always a way to cheat.


http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9walker

http://archive.news.iastate.edu/news/2011/apr/Pokewalker

Have a fall guy handy

So you're a rookie in the NFL? Take some advice from a veteran: Have a fall guy ready when you get into trouble.

http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/08/23/cris-carter-fall-guy-rookie-advice-league-inappropriate

Fans injured by baseballs

One of the recent stories in the news is about fans getting hit by baseballs. Apparently, 1750 fans get hit every year. And someone wrote a book about all the people killed by baseballs and baseball related activities. Who would've thought that baseball was so dangerous? Maybe fans should be the ones wearing the helmets.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ct-foul-ball-fan-wrigley-20150823-story.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-09-09/baseball-caught-looking-as-fouls-injure-1750-fans-a-year

https://deathattheballpark.wordpress.com/

http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/2015/06/liability-bob-gorman-and-baseball-news/

Lamborghini Huracan Crash at 208 mph

"In short, the guy was doing 208 miles per hour on public roads."

http://jalopnik.com/video-shows-lamborghini-huracan-doing-208-mph-on-highwa-1680367973

Developing the same part over and over

An interesting story in AutoNews.com about the massive redundancy and cost in developing the same thing over and over.

By his calculations, every four years, on average, automakers invest in product development a sum equal to what their companies are worth.

"In principle, Marchionne is right. The auto industry develops the same things 10 times over."

http://www.autonews.com/article/20150817/INDUSTRY_ON_TRIAL/308179997/duplicating-vehicle-engineering-pushes-costs-and-prices-higher

Top Gear electric car evaluated by Autocar.co.uk

"Can I get out now while I'm still alive?"

Top Gear builds an electric car

"You built a car that will only do 10 miles an hour?"

Garbage Trucks with License Plate Readers

So how long before you have self driving cars running around the city reading all the license plates? I wouldn't be surprised if they put RFID tags in license plates soon.

San Jose, California, America’s 10th largest city, isn’t just content to put license plate readers on police cars anymore—rather, it now wants to deputize garbage trucks to be an additional tool in its ongoing surveillance.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/08/forget-license-plate-readers-on-police-cars-how-about-on-garbage-trucks/

And look out for fake cactuses.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/9/8577559/paradise-valley-arizona-license-plate-readers-fake-cactus

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/screen-plate-club-how-license-plate-scanning-compromises-your-privacy-feature

Watched the Cosmos series on DVD

Somehow, when the new Cosmos series was broadcast last year I couldn't get into it. I just watched it on DVD and I thought it was pretty good. I rather enjoyed it and was able to get into a rhythm that you can't get watching it once per week.

I wonder if it's any better on blu-ray.



Whenever I see the logo, I keep thinking of the eye of Sauron.

Man drives Tesla 120,000 miles in 2 years

Let's see: If he drives 120,000 miles in 2 years that's about 164 miles per day every day or around 2.7 hours per day (assuming 60 mph). When he says "I'm always in the car" he means it.

http://evobsession.com/120000-miles-tesla-model-s-2-years-happy-customer-shares-story/

Segway owner dies riding a segway (2010)

This isn't new being from 2010, but I just read about it today. The owner of Segway, Jimi Heselden died after falling off a cliff riding his Segway. Apparently he was walking his dog and backed up to let a fellow dog walker pass.


http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/segway-owner-dies-in-segway-crash/


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015120/Segway-boss-Jimi-Heselden-fell-death-let-dog-walker-pass-Boston-Spa-West-Yorkshire.html

Self driving stroller

Just what every parent needs, a self driving stroller. What could go wrong?

http://elitedaily.com/news/volkswagens-self-driving-stroller-video/1179623/

Lexus LX 570 - looks like Cylons are here

Just saw the new Lexus LX 570. All I can say is that it looks like the Cylons.

http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1099586_refreshed-2016-lexus-lx-570-suv-bows-at-pebble-beach
http://www.thecarconnection.com/image/100522009_2016-lexus-lx-570

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/2016-lexus-lx-570-and-gs-unveil-their-corporate-126667595567.html

1500 square foot condo in LA

I thought this condo was kind of cool. 1500 square feet is approx 39x39 so I wouldn't exactly call it small. If that's a small condo I'd like to see a big condo. Interesting to have a full size organ, that's pretty old school.

I'm trying to decide if the fireplace on the wall is real or not.

http://www.ce.org/Blog/Articles/2015/July/A-Small-LA-Condo-Packs-a-Big-Smart-Home-Punch.aspx

Imcdb for cars in movies, impdb for planes in movies

How cool is the internet? There's a website dedicated to identifying cars in movies and I just discovered one dedicated to identifying planes in movies.

http://imcdb.org/

http://impdb.org/

50 things you didn't know about New Balance

I only wear New Balance shoes. The 608 cross trainers are the best shoes ever. Why do I like New Balance? Because you can get them in widths. I can't think of any other company where you can get a 4E width shoe. I remember being so frustrated not being able to find shoes that fit until I found New Balance.

http://www.complex.com/sneakers/2013/06/50-things-you-didnt-know-about-new-balance/steve-jobs

Ford CEO says they could build a Tesla if they wanted to

Now that Tesla has proven that it can be done Fields comments sound a bit like “Okay yea, I guess you could build a car like that if you did it that way.” And “We could have built one like that if we wanted to, we just didn’t want to.”

http://www.tgdaily.com/mobile/129016-ford-ceo-says-they-could-build-a-tesla-if-they-wanted-to

Porsche 918 spyder crash

It's always a good idea to launch your car with nowhere to go.

Hellcat V8

By now, you’ve surely heard about Dodge’s prodigious supercharged Hellcat V-8—that it takes 80 horsepower just to run its supercharger, which can suck the air from a 10-by-13-foot room in one minute, and that its fuel injectors can fill a pint glass in six seconds. Oh, and that it produces 707 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque, which turn the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat from a mere muscle car into a ballistic, five-seat supercar capable of hitting 60 mph in 3.6 seconds and passing the quarter-mile in 11.7 seconds at 126 mph, according to our first test, with a claimed top speed of 199 mph.

Totally ridiculous. Not quite insane or ludicrous though.

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2015-dodge-charger-srt-hellcat-first-drive-review

Finding Bigfoot in a Bundt cake

http://technabob.com/blog/2015/08/10/bigfoot-bundt-cake/

This is a travesty - smashing an apple 2

This is a travesty, smashing a poor old apple 2.

I remember they had this "car bash" at the fair where you could take a baseball bat to a car. 2 hits for a dollar or something like that. I thought it would be a good idea, but after hitting the car twice I felt really sick. I just don't feel good destroying things. Somehow it just felt wrong.

Son sets fire on car to upgrade to new model Ferrari

In a bizarre case out of Europe, a 20-year-old Swiss man reportedly set fire to a Ferrari 458 Italia given to him by his father in a half-baked scheme to use the insurance money to upgrade to a new model. Incredibly, the spoiled brat is said to have had 14 other cars (including a Lamborghini) at his disposal in addition to a property portfolio worth close to $30 million and a monthly allowance that fluctuated between $5,000 and $10,000.

Once you pass a certain threshold, you focus on the things you don't have instead of the things you have.

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1025515_spoiled-son-sets-fire-to-gifted-ferrari-in-order-to-upgrade-to-new-model

Typewriter Review

Ah, the venerable typewriter. It's been sadly disappearing in our new technological age where people dispose of anything that wasn't made in the last year.

This website has some nice photos of these modern relics. It's amazing how many variations there are. Who says typewriters aren't beautiful?

I remember the day I won a fancy electric typewriter in a school typing contest (back when typewriters were awesome) and I brought it home. My grandma tried it out but she was trained on manual typewriters and was smacking the keys terribly hard. Thwack! Thwack! Pow! Pow! "Grandma! You're killing it!" I exclaimed.

http://typewriterreview.com/

Bike car hybrid called the "ELF"

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bikecar-hybrid-combines-functions-of-both-makes-commute-fun/

Parkour at 40 stories high

Paul Smith art

I always liked Paul Smith's art. His characters were sleek and lean with clean lines. Most importantly, he could draw attractive women. I remember his run on the X-men years ago. I would go to the comic shop every weekend and eagerly looking for the next issue.

It's fun to browse the gallery on his website.

http://www.paulmartinsmith.com/content/gallery

Starstream #4

I remember this sci-fi comic from the 1970s. Ahhh, memories! I thought the story about Ben Franklin, Martian was pretty good. (Ben Franklin was supposedly an alien and upon his death he gets graded and receives an F, if I remember correctly).

All this sci-fi goodness for 79 cents!

One of the awesome things about the internet is that you can find info about all of the things you had as a kid.

STARSTREAM #4 - Adventures in Science Fiction; (Whitman Pub, Original USA Color comic);

CONTENTS -

"Call Me Joe" by Poul Anderson. (A strange symbiosis existed between the Jovian colonist and his human controller. But which was really the master?);

"Ben Franklin, Martian" by Pamela Eckard. (When the shot 'heard round the world' was fired, was an alien intelligence listening in ? A Streamstream original.);

"Does a Bee care?" by Isaac Asimov. (Hammer, the Chief Engineer, designed the ship down to the last detail. But is held a secret even he could not know!);

"The City" by Stephan Goldin. (The city was a dream world that had swallowed sixteen of JV-10's comrades! Would this nightmare metropolis claim him too?);

"Report to the Planetary Council" by Roger Elwood. (Man's ancient cousins evolved into an advanced civilization. Now they had a grudge to settle withus!);

"And the Blood Ran Green" by Robert Bloch. (An alien infection turns a routine exploration mission into a nightmare in this thriller from the author of 'Psycho');

Why we should switch to base 12

"...eight, nine, ten elv, unqua."

http://io9.com/5977095/why-we-should-switch-to-a-base-12-counting-system

Arcade Game Studio by Bruno Marcos

Today I came across this game maker called "Arcade Game Studio" by Bruno R. Marcos.



It looks just like 1980s arcade games.

He's got other neat stuff too at his website.

http://www.bruneras.com/index.php

http://www.bruneras.com/arcadegamestudio/index.php

DeluxePaint early source code released for Amiga

DeluxePaint always had a special place in my heart. From version 1.0 (which I remember had to be launched from a command line with "dpaint lo" or "dpaint hi"), to DeluxePaint II and DeluxePaint III, I spent so many hours with it.

The interface was absolutely groundbreaking. And every version got better.

The first time I saw DeluxePaint running on an Amiga I was gobsmacked. That's what got me to buy an Amiga. The color cycling waterfall. 4096 colors. 32 colors to choose from. 320x200 graphics. Wow. At the time, it blew everything else away.


The animation tools in DeluxePaint 3 were fantastic. I would wait hours to have a full screen perspective plane render an animation. Now, 3d hardware can do perspective planes in real time but back then what you could do with DeluxePaint 3 was friggin amazing. And on a stock 7.16 mhz Amiga.

Electronic Arts has released the source code for version 1.0 to the Computer History Museum.

I remember reading somwhere how difficult it was for Dan Silva to program the early Amiga, dealing with all of the bugs in the Amiga OS and the development tools at that time. But the end result was absolutely worth it.



http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/electronic-arts-deluxepaint-early-source-code/

Doctor Octopus Tesla charger

Tesla's got a new charging system: A robotic arm that reaches out and finds the charging socket. Probably not the greatest place to drop your keys...



http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/08/06/2149251/teslas-creepy-solid-metal-snake-robotic-charger-slithers-its-way-into-model-s

http://hothardware.com/news/teslas-solid-metal-snake-robotic-charger-slithers-its-way-into-model-s

A gym in your car

It's what every car needs: A built in gym.

And the included fridge should have plenty of sports drinks to replace all those electrolytes you use up after a big workout.

http://www.signaturemagazine.com.au/technogym-car/

Ork Attack: the Return for Amiga

One of my favorite games of all time is Ork Attack: the Return for Amiga.

It's a PD/Freeware game written by Ian West and Jonathan Eggleton. One of the cool things about it is that it was written in AMOS Basic.

The graphics and sound are perfect. I get a kick out of the ending screen where the Ork King says "You can never defeat my kind!"

The play mechanic is genius and has this magic combination of panic and frustration that keeps you playing.

I came across a video by someone who can really play this game. I never even knew there was a dragon.



It's a remake of another game called "Orc Attack"



JimBob liked it so much he made a remake:

http://www.acoders.com/software/ork-attack-107



There's even a tribute page to Ork Attack.

http://www.monroeworld.com/orkattack/

http://www.lemonamiga.com/?game_id=1894

Marble Madness at 1200 marbles per minute

All these marbles sound like the interstate freeway.

http://www.geek.com/news/real-life-marble-madness-creates-tsunami-of-spherical-craziness-1624159/

Kia Soul taken for a joyride

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/08/03/dealership-joyride-kia-soul-video/

"After all this, the continuing heartbreak to her soul..."

The dealership ultimately bought back her Soul. No word if Faust could get the same deal.

Reminds me of the mechanics who took a Focus ST for a joyride.

25 more inventions

My favorite here is the LED drivemotion display.

http://www.viralnova.com/25-incredibly-useful-inventions/

Lemmings full playthrough DOS

A full playthrough of all 120 levels. 6 hours of lemmings goodness.

Winuae Bridgeboard emulation

Wow, Toni Wilen has done it again. He's put support into the latest Winuae beta for the emulation of an Amiga Bridgeboard. I never thought I would see this ever. I am continually amazed at the ability of Toni to put cool features into Winuae.




http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=76395

Academic Teaching Doesn’t Prepare Students for Life

I thought this post was pretty insightful.

Schools value hoop jumping

For the most part, kids who we consider “academic” tend to be good hoop jumpers. They’ve figured out the system and can navigate their way through the predictable demands of the system. But they are seldom truly engaged. Rarely are they transformed by their learning. They’re going through the motions.

http://plpnetwork.com/2013/11/07/obsession-academic-teaching-preparing-kids-life/

Tesla and buyer's remorse

The underlying issue is that Tesla keeps improving its offerings, and this 1) cuts into the value of owners’ previously bought cars, 2) is depressing to see when you just barely missed getting the new-and-improved product.

http://evobsession.com/heres-an-issue-tesla-owners-just-have-to-live-with/

25 seemingly minor inventions from Cracked

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_867_25-seemingly-minor-inventions-that-totally-changed-your-life/

25 best inventions of 2014 from Time

There's some good inventions here, I like the Blue Room (20 of 25), developed by the Snake River correctional institution in Oregon for their inmates in solitary confinement.

It's a large exercise room where they project images of nature as a way of calming them down. Why not project those images inside their cell?

Some of the inventions aren't all that awesome, like having ipad tangrams with the Osmo (21 of 25). Seriously, do you really need an ipad for tangrams?

http://time.com/3594971/the-25-best-inventions-of-2014/

Just don't get into an accident with a Tesla

This Is What $30,000 Of Damage Looks Like On A Tesla Model S

http://gas2.org/2015/01/06/this-is-what-30000-of-damage-looks-like-on-a-tesla-model-s/

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/01/05/model-s-owner-owing-tesla-awesome-get-accident/

Tons of rear-end accidents. I can’t tell you for sure why. The reason may (or may not) be due to the default “Standard,” very aggressive, regenerative braking setting. With the higher reg on … the car behind perhaps isn’t going to see red lights as quickly as you slow down, which equals more rear-end accidents. Also, the overall super-quietness of the Model S may lead to more accidents.

Just don’t get in an accident, due to parts availability. It takes a month to get parts and get fixed up. Also, the repairs aren’t cheap. So just don’t get in an accident.

http://insideevs.com/dont-wreck-your-tesla-model-s-because-repairs-are-supposedly-costly-and-time-consuming/

Tron HD - the game you will never play

Jarret Heather has restored a Tron cabinet and written his own enhanced version of Tron.

Sadly, you will never get to play it but it looks awesome and challenging.

http://spaceparanoids.net/tron/

All you can haul at the Junkyard

Junkyard Bonanza: A Tale of All-You-Can-Haul Hooliganism

“That sounds like Black Friday meets a roller derby.”

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/07/junkyard-bonanza-tale-needless-necessary/

Does the 2016 Volt Look Like a Honda Civic?

Cars are really starting to look alike these days.

http://www.hybridcars.com/does-the-2016-volt-look-like-a-honda-civic/