(I am essentially cross-posting this from something I wrote for Clusterflock. I want to get some thoughts and experiences from GF’s readers as well.)
The current situation: I drive a 2006 Dodge Charger R/T, which I’m convinced is made of human feces and some wires. I hate the car across every dimension: the quality sucks, it’s a boat, the mileage is horrible (around 17-18 in summer; 15-16 in winter), the brakes warped at 23K miles, the horn honked randomly until the 3rd trip to the shop, and when I try to start it in the morning it cranks and wheezes and turns like an air-cooled VW that has been mortared and set aflame, even though this too has been looked at (and “fixed”) by a dealership on two different occasions. Even some of its features, in their designed-as-intended state, are stupid. I often want to punch the car but don’t for fear of something important falling off/out, like an axle or the transmission.
Why did I buy it? Good question. I think it’s because I was stupid on that particular day.
So, fast forward to where I am right now: I’m coming up on my lease mileage limit on the Dodge and have a cool 8 months left on this screaming piece of shit, and with my monthly gas expense hovering nicely in the $450 or so range (more than my lease payment), I’m thinking about just buying this thing out and getting a 2008 Prius. I’m fairly sure the math works. (Math is numbers and language is letters, right?)
It’s to that end I am seeking your opinions, anecdotes and experiences with a late-model Prius. I know it’s not some supercar in terms of performance, but that’s not what I want in my daily driver. (That’s what I will buy a Nissan GT-R for.) I want a car that will get me to and fro with a minimum of this thing we call money leaving my pocket.
For reference, my Charger costs me about $1100-$1250 per month to operate. The Prius will cost me around $740. I think I know which way the alligator mouth is pointing on this one.
Having been in Chicago this past weekend, I can vouch for the necessity of such a program. It’s like people were begging to be drilled by the nearest willing car.
The new program will be first unveiled in select, high-danger cities:
The program began in selected cities this month with the distribution of pamphlets at each city’s most dangerous intersections. It will also expand into national radio spots, televised PSAs, and, most importantly, word-of-mouth. Included in the pamphlets are tips on how every responsible pedestrian can learn to “Get The Fuck Outta The Road,” including “Move your ass!” and “Look where you’re fucking going for once!” as well as an instructive diagram for removing one’s head from one’s ass prior to stepping into the crosswalk.
Then trickle down to the school level to help kids understand the danger inherent in getting obliterated by a car moving 60 MPH:
NHTSA officials say they hope the program will eventually branch out to include elementary schools with the child-friendly program “Hey Kids, Get The Fuck Outta The Road!” which will feature a mascot called Tire-Tread Teddy.
And then into a number of sub-programs:
The NHTSA has also launched a number of complementary subprograms using funding from the National Truck Drivers Union and Greyhound Bus Lines. These include “Oh, Good, Just Ride Your Bike Down The Middle Of The Road Why Don’t You,” “Ever Heard Of A Crosswalk, Dickhead?” and, for more affluent metropolitan neighborhoods, “What The Fuck—Are You Listening To Your Special Getting-Hit-By-A-Car Mix On That iPod, You Vacant Asshole?”
Even with the program barely in its infancy, the early results have been extremely positive:
The new program has already shown positive results. A test study in downtown Chicago was found to be nearly twice as effective in preventing pedestrian casualties as the NHTSA’s previous “Have A Safer Journey” program. Likewise, early trials the family-oriented, “You Must Be Thinking, ‘Hey, I Bet My Kids Are Playing In The Driveway, So I Think I’ll Go Back My SUV Out Of The Garage Without Even Fucking Looking And Pulp Them Into A Steaming Red Mess,’” have been similarly successful.
I applaud the NHTSA’s efforts and hope this radical new messaging finally makes people understand that they shouldn’t be experimenting with car v. pedestrian weight ratios. It’s a national epidemic, and collectively, we have the power to stop it. Take a moment today to help someone you love not get shredded by an SUV.
I guess having your stock fall nearly 15% on over 10x its average daily trading volume is enough to fairly forcibly remove your head from your anus.
May 5 (Bloomberg) — Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang said he would be open to another bid from Microsoft Corp. or other companies at a price he considers appropriate.
Yahoo continues to speak with other companies about ways to increase its value, Yang said today in a phone interview with Bloomberg News. While the Sunnyvale, California-based company isn’t for sale, it would listen, “should somebody else come back someday and want to buy the company,” he said.
Yang’s time has come and gone. While I appreciate what he has done for the web and search industry with partner David Filo, it’s clear he has put his pride and ideals before shareholder interests. I suspect this lesson will be taught to Yang in vivid color via the avalanche of lawsuits being drawn up right now.
There aren’t enough words in the English language with the proper levels of reverence to describe how badly I want to own a GT-R. For my money, there is no better performer on the market and the engineering lengths to which Nissan went are staggering.
The GT-R previously held the production car ‘Ring lap record of 7:38, which beat out ultra-high dollar supercars like the Porsche GT3, Lamborghini Murcielago and Mercedes SLR. Nonetheless, Nissan engineers (and GT-R test driver Tochio Suzuki) were disappointed, so they went back for another shot.
When the 193-MPH Nissan GT-R set a lap time of 7:38 last year at the ‘Ring, besting cars like the Porsche GT3, Lamborghini Murcielago, and Mercedes SLR, the Nissan team was disappointed. There were two damp corners on the track, and everyone was quite sure that the car, piloted by official test driver Tochio Suzuki, could go faster.
On its latest try, with a dry track, the GT-R has cut a full nine seconds off its previous best time. This performance means the GT-R now tops such thoroughbred race cars such as the Porsche GT2, Koenigsegg and Mercedes SLR 722 GT. That’s ultra-expensive race car territory kids. Purebred machines a production car like the GT-R has no right to trifle with.
Right?
If you take the bone-stock tires off the GT-R and give it racing skins, there’s a very solid chance it would pass the next two record-holders up the road: the Porsche Carrera GT and Pagani Zonda F Clubsport.
Think about that: a production car, which you can bag for a reasonable $70K, topping full-on race cars 3x - 5x more expensive.
In other news, if you want to advertise on GF, I am now accepting ad slots. An exclusive spot costs $70K and you will stay on the site forever. Maybe longer. First come, first serve.
As gas prices pass $3.50 a gallon nationally and the economy teeters on recession, independent used car dealers like Hoyos and massive chains like AutoNation Inc. are having trouble selling used SUVs as buyers prefer smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles likes hybrids and crossovers (CUVs). Crossovers such as the Ford Edge, Honda CR-V, and Toyota RAV4 have more interior room and more rugged styling that the average car, but with a lighter chassis and generally better gas economy than an SUV.
Used SUV sales in March were down 14 percent nationally compared to last year, according to data compiled by CNW Marketing Research. That follows drops in used SUV sales of more than 8 percent for the first two months of the year, compared to the same months in 2007.
That trend has sent used SUV prices plummeting, giving owners a shock when they try to trade theirs in and find out how little they can get.
I get increasingly irritated when I see the besuited corporate jackasses driving their Escalade ESVs around blithering away on their cell phones with nobody else in the car. From my former life, I know 90% of these morons don’t need a car that size for any reason except to somehow show others they’ve arrived. Then I realize that they’re dropping close to $100 each time they need to fill those beasts up, and that makes it all go away.
True story: just today, as I pulled into my office, I see a late-model Ford F350 Supercab and a Denali XL in a nearby parking lot, for sale by owner. Yeah, good luck with that. I have a feeling those will be on the market for quite some time.
The coming wave of small is upon us. Before long, we will be mirroring European driving habits, which is a good thing.
Here’s a somewhat puzzling video of four Saudi Arabian people in a car driving down the highway at a reasonably high rate of speed. The twist is that three of them are on the outside of the car and seem to be skating on the concrete surface. In some sort of weird sandal, no less.
Dale and Leilani Neumann refused to seek medical attention for their 11-year-old daughter, who was suffering from acute untreated diabetes. Eventually her condition, called ketoacidosis (a lack of the proper amount of insulin in the body), became fatal. The parents refused medical help because they thought their daughter was being attacked spiritually and that prayer was the answer.
Family and friends had urged Dale and Leilani Neumann to get help for their daughter, but the father considered the illness “a test of faith” and the mother never considered taking the girl to the doctor because she thought her daughter was under a “spiritual attack,” the criminal complaint said.
Even more gruesome is what happened after the girl died. When told that the body would be taken away the next day for autopsy, the parents replied,
“You won’t need to do that. She will be alive by then.”
The two parents are being charged with second-degree reckless homicide. Anything less than a full conviction is not justice in my book.
Look, if you want to adhere to some stupefyingly twisted view of religious dogma, be my guest. But in the process, you have no right to bring up a child in this world. When your ridiculous beliefs affect an innocent life, then you’re no less insane than the guy who takes a chainsaw to his neighbor because the voices in his head told him to. You are the same criminal.
Ready? Troy Hitch, 37, and Matt Bledsoe, 39 — the guys responsible for YSAP and its sequel — met a few years ago while producing a radio ad in Cincinnati, which is 10 minutes from Covington. Bledsoe was the ad’s creative director and Hitch, a polymath, was doing the voice-over (he’s also the voice of Donnie and a real Photoshop expert). They quickly became buddies, started writing funny bits together, and partnered up at a creative agency Hitch later started, Big Fat Institute.
Enter Rob Barnett, a show biz guy who had worked at MTV, VH1 and was president of CBS Radio. In 2006, Barnett had decided to become a web video impresario and was looking for someone to design his site. A friend suggested he look at a number of hot sites — including Big Fat Institute. “It was hysterical,” he recalled recently. “I was instantly engaged and emailed them ‘WHO are you?’ In 38 seconds, I get a response: ‘Who are YOU?’ We started flirting.” The email led to phone calls and an invitation to visit Barnett: “A few days later, they jumped on a plane to Newark and we fell in love.” The guys built Barnett’s website, MyDamnChannel, and started doing comedy videos for it. Maybe you’ve seen “Itty Bitty Liddy,” about a 6-inch-tall Gordon Liddy? Or Tim after Tim about, er, something else? Probably not.
Anyway, one night, they found themselves facing a deadline, with no content. They had long nurtured an idea for a character they thought of as “the Angry Photoshop Guy.” Explained Bledsoe: “We had both been in the agency business so long that after a while we’d seen every kind of person in the advertising world.” One of those stereotypes, he said, was the “insane designer, basically. He has horrible social skills and horrible things going on in his life and the only thing he has going for him is he can out-Photoshop the guy in the cube next to him.”
Two and a half hours later, they finished the first episode. Hitch did most of the work, admitted Bledsoe. “The vast majority is improvised by Troy,” he said. “I hate him for that.”
There was some speculation on the net and here in my office that Dane Cook was behind the YSAP series. Wrong.
Clay Shirky provides a fascinating answer to “Where to people find the time?”, a question asked routinely by people who don’t understand how society is trending away from television (which is an accepted pastime) and towards more constructive “cognitive heatsinks” like the internet (which is still considered frivolous). If you’d rather have your TV commandeered than your computer, this video is for you.
Dell will be offering Windows XP to its customers beyond the June 30 cutoff date by taking advantage of a licensing option in Vista Business and Vista Ultimate. This option, called a “downgrade” license, essentially will let customers purchase XP under a Vista wrapper. The beauty here is that when customers purchase XP under this program after June 30, Microsoft can tally the sale as a Vista license, not XP.
Dell will take advantage of a licensing option in Vista Business and Vista Ultimate that lets PC makers provide XP under the Vista license, which Microsoft calls a “downgrade” license. (Enterprises with site licenses have these same rights with any version of Vista.) In essence, the user is buying a Vista license that it can apply to XP, and Microsoft can still claim a Vista sale.
I predicted a couple years ago that CERN would eventually be met with some socio-political pressure to stop its work with the Large Hadron Collider, and it appears I was right. CERN scientists admit that their work is a huge leap for particle physics, but, ah, what they’re trying to do nobody really understands.
The world’s physicists have spent 14 years and $8 billion building the Large Hadron Collider, in which the colliding protons will recreate energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Researchers will sift the debris from these primordial recreations for clues to the nature of mass and new forces and symmetries of nature.
But Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.” Their suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Although it sounds bizarre, the case touches on a serious issue that has bothered scholars and scientists in recent years — namely how to estimate the risk of new groundbreaking experiments and who gets to decide whether or not to go ahead.
I can’t tell if the weatherman is just slow in processing the host’s comment or is being sarcastic. I’m guessing he’s just overreacting for the sake of theatrics — which, if that’s the case, I guess works rather well.
Maybe it’s because of stupid, racist local advertisements like the one below, running in South Oak, IL.
For the record, I have a Dodge Charger R/T and the thing is a galactic piece of shit and I hope it gets stolen every single night. I will never again buy another Chrysler product, and quite candidly, I will think long and hard before pulling the trigger on another American car, period.
Mac maker Apple Inc. enjoyed strong retail sales during the first calendar quarter of 2008, boosting its share of the US personal computer market above 6 percent, according to a report released Wednesday by market research firm Gartner.
In total, the Cupertino-based company is said to have shipped over 1.01 million systems nationally, representing 32.5 percent growth and a 6.6 percent share of the US PC market, up from 762,000 systems and 5.2 percent share during the same three-month period last year. In addition to its strong retail performance, there were indications that Apple showed decent growth in the professional market as well, Gartner said.
I’ve never before seen such an embarrassing internal marketing video. It’s nearly impossible to get much worse than this, and if you didn’t know better, you’d swear it’s a bad YouTube joke.
It’s not. It’s real, and supposed to be clever.
Microsoft marketing is officially dead. Notice all the suits in the video: that’s Microsoft’s remaining stronghold. That’s their lifeblood, and here’s your tacit admission of such. Problem is, this is so stupidly campy that it won’t resonate with anyone, let alone enterprises or MS enterprise sales reps.
The video is so bad that I refuse to embed it. If you want to see it for yourself, see here and keep the bad juju away from me.
My grandmother passed early this morning. She was 91. Her quality of life had been quite poor for the last three or four years, so on one hand I’m glad her suffering has ended. On the other, the world lost a person who had such character that I’d be proud if my son grew up with the same virtues.
I remember her peanut butter cookies and the instant coffee she insisted my mom allow me to have. She was a grandma I wish everyone could have.
More later.
“When we honestly ask which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face us with the reality of our powerlessness…..makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present for each other is what really matters.”
In what sounds to me like a personal demon roosting over reality — or at very least a case of misattributing the evils of materialism to design — Phillipe Starck says that he apologizes for the waste his design career has caused.
“I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact. Everything I designed was unnecessary. I will definitely give up in two years’ time. I want to do something else, but I don’t know what yet. I want to find a new way of expressing myself …design is a dreadful form of expression…. In future there will be no more designers. The designers of the future will be the personal coach, the gym trainer, the diet consultant.”
Starck is mainly responsible for the interior design of some fine European hotels as well as an entire cadre of consumer products, from toothbrushes to citrus juicers to wrist watches.
While I do believe that what Starck is talking about is a more personal issue than meets the eye, I quite frankly don’t see design being dead. In fact, I think there’s quite an awakening to design across many consumer markets. I do agree with Starck, however, in saying that a new sub-domain of designers moving forward will indeed be diet consultants, lifestyle/wellness coaches, and personal trainers. For an increasing number, the issues most important to them are wellness, prevention and graceful aging.
Clifford Stoll, among many other things, is the most eccentric and energetic presenter I’ve ever seen. I can’t recall seeing so many topics (not) talked about, a real experiment to measure the wavelength of sound, and a valuable life lesson wrapped into a single presentation.
Like all things TED, this simply shouldn’t be missed. Better than any TV channel out there.
In the spirit of Dove’s Onslaught campaign, here’s a look at a 2007 Redbook cover featuring singer Faith Hill. Now, Mrs. Hill is an attractive woman, but if for one second you really believe the images in a high-gloss commercial publication, it’s about time you wake up. You’re being sold a bill of goods, which is bad to begin with. Holding women up to this artificial bar is another thing altogether.
Photoshop: the best and worst thing to happen to the notion of seeing is believing.
