I think the artist that created it (the guy in the white suite) is named ferdinand
A collegue of mine commented:
Do it in black, add a dynamo driven car audio, and then lets go to cologne city center with this!
the primary intent of the artist is to just trick people that pass you at the traffic light, thinking you've just turned off the engine on first sight...
but then it starts _slouuuw_ and absolutely silent ;-)
Since we've got a porche tuning company 3km down the valey, i'd like to go there and order one ;-)
http://jalopnik.com/5596968/
I may trade my chick car for a Wrangler this time, if everything works out. I might need it if Hurricane Earl makes it to WNC.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/4226979
I seem to recall that I first heard about 42 volt cars right after I spent a bunch of money on a 12 volt battery charger and thinking, "damn, I was planning on having this thing last for decades, just like the ones my father and grandfather bought when they were my age."
It turns out the 42-volt system was ridden with problems, such as the ability to build reliable 42VDC switches that don't need replacing every 10,000 miles.
And of course, it became a nearly universal sentiment that nobody *wanted* to go through this transition.
patent number 5040168 seems to imply something like that, although it describes an infrared system...
http://www.yamar.com/
Heh. It basically looks like X-10 for your car. :)
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-14-smaller-suv-safer-ride
so its been a while since we had the SUV discussion the last time; This study sugests that choosing a bigger SUV or Pickup is less secure.
Interesting closingline:
But perhaps the biggest lesson of all is in the chart above: If you want to stay safe, your best bet is to live in a place where you don't have to drive much. The casualty differences between a compact urban neighborhood and a suburb are much greater than the relatively minor safety gains from getting a slightly bigger car. Which suggests that if you really want to drive safely, your best option is to drive less.
Information like that is useless, why do they bother.
Most people can say it's more dangerous to shoot a gun than not shoot a gun, drive than not drive, etc., but fail utterly at actually assigning probabilities to any particular threat. Predictions are based entirely on which made-for-television specials they watched as children, whether they watch nightly news, their particular prejudices and phobias, etc.
My team would frequently find ourselves waiting around for a few days at a time in Kandahar in between operations. A common practice by the enemy at the time was to hire two local nationals to set up a mortar on a fuse. (Literally a fuse. Of course, the "mortar" was just a metal tube propped up with rocks.) They'd point it in the vague direction of the base, light the fuse, and be back in the village spending their money on porn when the thing actually went off.
It would land somewhere in the dozen square miles of empty space on Kandahar Air Base in the middle of the night. (I never once was close enough to impact to actually hear the round.) The sirens would go off. All allied personnel would get up, scamper off to the shelters, and take accountability of all of their people while waiting for a follow up attack that never happened. An hour later, they might go back to bed. To my knowledge, no one had ever actually been killed by one of these.
Since we were a transient team not really accountable to anyone, we just put a pillow over our heads and went back to sleep (or went back to the book or whatever). Mortars are dangerous. These particular mortars were not dangerous, just irritating. In the modern, insanely risk averse military, however, every threat no matter how trivial has to be treated with the utmost seriousness. The intent was not to damage, but to harass; it worked.
well, you also see which sort of car to drive is more risky which in that graph shows some information above 'not to drive is the safest drive'
I just think its also a good point to choose your homebase so your daily ways are short; there are people driving 50 km to work (and more) which the german state has subventions for; They were added to stop the outskirts from dying, but today i'd say its outright wrong since it makes people waste their time on their way to work just because of its "not as expensive"
there are other similar things to see; since the ICE track Cologne <->Frankfurt opened, and there were two smalish cities in between in the middle of nowhere; one is Montabauer:
(zoom out 3 steps to see Frankfurt and Koeln /cologne)
which is ~100km away from Frankfurt, but a growing number of people start commuting from there to FFM because of the distance by the ICE is half an hour; so by effect Montabauer has become a suburb of frankfurt, which is a bad thing if you watch the co2-footprint of such a behaviour.
It's kind of obvious that if you drive for less time, fewer miles, and lower speeds, you're likely to get into fewer accidents or at least have fewer serious injuries.
This is kinda moot if you work 50 miles from home in one direction and your spouse lives 60 miles in another one. It's also kinda moot if your choice is between that and living someplace you consider unlivable or dangerous.
Relative safety of different vehicles is an entirely different issue. Some cars take impact better, others are more likely to flip, etc. Most people will not drive less because of a study, because they feel that the vast majority of their car rides are a necessity. Many people do look at a car's safety rating when they're looking to purchase a car.
Di Jan 25 2011 00:54:00 EST von triLcat @ UncensoredRelative safety of different vehicles is an entirely different issue. Some cars take impact better, others are more likely to flip, etc. Most people will not drive less because of a study, because they feel that the vast majority of their car rides are a necessity. Many people do look at a car's safety rating when they're looking to purchase a car.
yes, another form factor about the big SUVs (next to their balance point being way up in comparison to a sedan -> flipping verticaly) is, that most drivers are just unable to control their vehicle in a safe way for them and their environment because of the overview about whats going around them and they simply don't see stuff.
interesting that bigger people carriers don't seem to have that problem; maybe because of they're operated by proffessional drivers...
at $7.50/gallon, there's not a whole lot of frivolous driving in Israel...though I'm surprised how many people won't carpool b/c it's a little inconvenient.
I'm actually kind of irked at a friend who won't carpool even once a week which means that his wife is always stranded at home with 2 kids even though the car sits in a parking lot all day.