Quotulatiousness

October 21, 2010

I still think they should call it the “milliVolt”

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Politics, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:06

The much-less-than-promised Chevy Volt goes on sale next month. If it had been a private company delivering so few of their promises, lawsuits or regulatory sanctions would be forthcoming. Because it’s a product of Government Motors, we’re being told that the “Electric Edsel” is not fraud, it’s fantastic:

Government Motors’ all-electric car isn’t all-electric and doesn’t get near the touted hundreds of miles per gallon. Like “shovel-ready” jobs, maybe there’s no such thing as “plug-ready” cars either.

The Chevy Volt, hailed by the Obama administration as the electric savior of the auto industry and the planet, makes its debut in showrooms next month, but it’s already being rolled out for test drives by journalists. It appears we’re all being taken for a ride.

[. . .]

So it’s not an all-electric car, but rather a pricey $41,000 hybrid that requires a taxpayer-funded $7,500 subsidy to get car shoppers to look at it. But gee, even despite the false advertising about the powertrain, isn’t a car that gets 230 miles per gallon of gas worth it?

We heard GM’s then-CEO Fritz Henderson claim the Volt would get 230 miles per gallon in city conditions. Popular Mechanics found the Volt to get about 37.5 mpg in city driving, and Motor Trend reports: “Without any plugging in, (a weeklong trip to Grandma’s house) should return fuel economy in the high 30s to low 40s.”

Car and Driver reported that “getting on the nearest highway and commuting with the 80-mph flow of traffic — basically the worst-case scenario — yielded 26 miles; a fairly spirited backroad loop netted 31; and a carefully modulated cruise below 60 mph pushed the figure into the upper 30s.”

As I said in an earlier post:

I’m very much in favour of an economical electric car: the Volt doesn’t meet that definition. It’s been rushed to market for political, not for economic reasons. It’ll be kept in the market regardless of sales figures for the same reason: it allows Barack Obama and senate leaders to point at the Volt as tangible proof that they care about the environment and reducing American dependence on foreign oil.

October 20, 2010

Some combination tools work well … and then there’s this one

Filed under: Humour, Randomness, Tools, Woodworking — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:05

Christopher Schwarz gives in to the urge to try out a new tool that combines the rasp and the chisel in one not-so-easy-to-handle package:

Now usually when I see a tool like this I just ignore it. Boneheaded ideas like this usually end up in a mass grave with the bones of dodo birds, passenger pigeons and AMC Pacer automobiles. But a couple weeks ago I stumbled on a set of these tools for sale — new — on Amazon.

These tools must be stopped. So I bought a set of three to take a look. They are as bad as I feared.

The tools are incredibly heavy. The rasp teeth are coarse and not very aggressive. They manage to make more of a farting sound than any scratches in the wood. Of course, it doesn’t help things that you have to use the rasp one-handed — grabbing the chisel tip is ill-advised.

Or is it? The chisel edge is as sharp as Lennie from “Of Mice and Men.” And when you do pound the chisel into a piece of wood (thank you Mongo the Mallet) the tool stops dead after 1″ because the rasp teeth dig into your work.

And the worst thing of all? They are branded as Nicholson — the once-great rasp maker.

But if this tool can succeed in the marketplace for 10 years, what other opportunities are toolmakers missing out on?

October 14, 2010

Old stereotypes still thrive in niche ecologies

Filed under: Humour, Randomness — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:49

An exchange that wouldn’t have been at all surprising in, say, 1950:

"Jo,
As much as I appreciate your reply, I think this manuscript is perahps [sic] too heavy for you.
Don't get me wrong, I am not remeaning [sic] your professionalism, it's just VERY profound and maybe too much for a female to edit.
A delicate mind I do not want editing this.
Best regards,
Etc"

Jo Caird called on deep reserves of patience to respond:

"Dear Etc,
Thanks for your prompt reply.
Thanks too for your candid (not to mention eloquently expressed - although I believe the word you were looking for was 'demeaning', not 'remeaning') appraisal of my intellectual and professional capabilities. It's reassuring to me, as a 'female' (again, I believe you mean 'woman') of delicate sensibilities and feeble judgement, to know that considerate gentlemen such as yourself exist to protect me from that which I lack the depth of character to understand.
As to how you've assessed that I am too weak-minded to work on, or even indeed to read, your manuscript, given that we have never met, or even spoken on the phone, I can only speculate. I wish you, in any case, all the best with it.
Have a lovely weekend.
Kind regards,
Jo"

H/T to Tim Harford for the link.

October 13, 2010

“I just taught them a new game . . .”

Filed under: Humour, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:28

H/T to Martina for the link.

October 12, 2010

Monty on structural unemployment

Filed under: Economics, Education, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:07

Monty is still too busy with real life to do a daily Financial Briefing, but he’s dropping by a few times a week with his insightful-and-acidic thoughts at Ace of Spades HQ:

Welding jobs may be plentiful, but that’s no help to you if you’re not a welder. This is called “structural unemployment”, and it has no real short-term solution. It results from a disconnect between current worker skills and employer requirements. It’s really a form of malinvestment. Students train in subjects like Postmodernist Literary Theory and The Hermeneutics of Lesbian Cinema, but the job market is asking for engineers and plumbers. Workers in fading industries won’t or can’t retrain. The last time this problem cropped up was during the 1982 recession: the old manufacturing jobs were gone, and the hundreds of thousands of Rust Belt factory workers — many now middle-aged, with high union wages and benefits packages they didn’t want to lose — either could not or would not re-train into other fields. This led to a long cycle of stagnation in which the American upper midwest remains mired to this very day. Pull quote:

Victor Calix Cruz, 51, has been job hunting for two years after being laid off from construction work in Miami. He, his wife and their two teenage children are “surviving” on his wife’s disability and his unemployment payments, he said. While he heard of openings at hotels, he hasn’t applied because the pay and benefits aren’t as good as what he had before.

I don’t imagine that your unemployment check matches what you were making before either, Chief. It’s like the old Rolling Stones song: you can’t always get what you want.

October 9, 2010

QotD: The American car

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Liberty, Quotations, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:03

In making automobiles more safe and ecologically friendly, we’ve often lost sight of the basic cost benefit factor — I think this is probably more true in the safety than in ecology — and one of the things that is precious about the American automobile industry is that it provided a cheap and reliable means of transportation for practically everyone in society, and then when those vehicles became used vehicles, it gave cheap and mostly reliable transportation to everybody, to the point where the Oakies in the dust bowl were in Model T fords and not on foot. When we undertake to make the automobile this humming, electronic device that provides a perfect egg of safety and closure and creates no adverse externalities (as people like to say these days) we lose sight of the purpose of the damn thing in the first place. And the purpose was to allow freedom — freedom and horizontal mobility to the masses. That’s why cash for clunkers was just sinful. You’re taking a bunch of perfectly good vehicles, inexpensive vehicles that could be used by people without much in the way of material means, and crushing them. If someone took a valuable resource — something that could really be useful to people — and destroyed it, they’d be in jail if they were private citizens.

P.J. O’Rourke, “P.J. O’Rourke Likes Puppies and America, Dislikes Flip Flops at the Airport [Texas Book Festival Interview]”, Austinist.com, 2010-10-08

September 15, 2010

Recognize your password?

Filed under: Randomness, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 16:49

Password Authentication Tag Cloud

Earlier posts on this topic: Passwords and the average user, More on passwords, And yet more on passwords, and Practically speaking, the end is in sight for passwords.

H/T to Bruce Schneier for the link.

Think of coach seating as “cattle class”?

Filed under: Economics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:11

If you thought it wasn’t possible to make air travel even worse, you just don’t think big enough:

Italian company Aviointeriors showed off its new “Skyrider” seat at an airshow in California. The curious-looking seats have just 23-inches of space between the seat and the row in front of you. Current airline seating configurations gives you a seemingly spacious 30-inches or so.

I’ve pretty much given up on air travel already, except for trans-Atlantic flights, but this little innovation would probably make me look for steerage class bookings on freighters . . .

September 5, 2010

Detroit Police save money by eliminating pistol practice?

Filed under: Law, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:36

At least, based on this story, you’d have to think it’s the most likely answer:

Cop Fires Twelve Shots at Dog, Hits Two Animal Control Workers Instead

[. . .]

Detroit Police needed to remove the dogs, so they called the Michigan Anti-Cruelty Society. While the rescuers were setting traps for the three pit bulls, one got loose and started running towards a police officer. That’s when, we’re told, she pulled her gun and fired off twelve rounds.

[…]

“The police pulled a gun out and shot, but she missed the dog. I guess she was scared or something, and she hit the animal control person,” he said.

One animal rescue worker took a bullet in the back of the leg. Another grazed his back side. A stray bullet also clipped his co-worker’s boot.

Not quite the best advertisement for range safety, weapons handling expertise, or accuracy.

Craigslist surrenders, problem totally resolved

Filed under: Humour, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:26

Dan Tynan recounts the glorious moral victory scored by unhappy state legislators against the final bastion of sin and decadence, Craigslist:

Bowing to pressure from 17 state attorneys general, Craigslist has begun censoring its Adult Services ads. Visitors coming to any of the 400+ Craigslist sites will encounter a big black CENSORED tab where Adult Services used to be.

As we all know, the scourge of prostitution had been entirely eradicated from modern society before Craigslist came along. And now that Adult Service ads are banned, you can expect all those hard-working gals to pack up their condoms and lubricants and enroll in secretarial school.

Alas, we fear that — despite the best intentions of 17 state attorneys general desperately trying to get re-elected — a ban on Adult Services won’t quite put an end to adult-oriented advertising on Craigslist.

August 29, 2010

Is Haynesworth going to live down to expectations?

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:23

Mark Craig doesn’t think the Washington Redskins are going to get anything like their money’s worth from a mega-paid player this season:

Other than not being a billionaire, here’s another reason I couldn’t own an NFL team: Albert Haynesworth. The Haynesworth-Mike Shanahan feud, to me, reached an even more serious level now that Shanahan announced Baby Huey won’t play with the first-team defense in Friday’s preseason game against the Jets. The third preseason game is really the only important preseason game the NFL has. It’s when coaches and players actually try to simulate an NFL contest.

If I’m an NFL owner, I cut my losses with Haynesworth right now. He’s not worth it. The $100 million man was a major disappointment as a happy camper playing in the 4-3 last year. Now, he’s a cancer who hates the 3-4, doesn’t practice and plays with the scrubs.

Haynesworth isn’t the difference between the Redskins finishing last or first in the NFC East. He’s simply not worth the headache.

August 27, 2010

Redesigning the American dollar bill?

Filed under: Economics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:22

Gerard Vanderleun isn’t over-enthused by the notion:

The ObamaBuck-U: A New Bill to Inspire Confident Recovery

I’d advise these sooper-genius designers to design the ObamaBuck with a lot of room for extra zeroes. Gotta plan for the forthcoming Weimarization of the US economy.

What else are these hamstrung colonized minds designing in the way of currency? Here’s there list. You can smell the overheated whiffs of sanctimony just reeking from the stack:

$1 – The first African American president
$5 – The five biggest native American tribes
$10 – The bill of rights, the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution
$20 – 20th Century America
$50 – The 50 States of America
$100 – The first 100 days of President Franklin Roosevelt. During this time he led the congress to pass more important legislations [sic] than most presidents pass in their entire term. This helped fight the economic crises at the time of the great depression. Ever since, every new president has been judged on how well they have done during the first 100 days of their term.

When was the last time these fools took a history course? Third grade? Where are these drool-cup designing dolts based in the US? San Francisco, where else? The town where the homeless defecate freely on the street and where the artists defecate freely in their brains.

If nothing else, the proposed designs would do one useful thing: they’d stop Americans from sneering at the design of Canadian banknotes!

August 12, 2010

If you search for “James Buchanan worst president ever” you get 1,550,000 hits

Filed under: History, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:47

But in spite of that, he’s still getting a dollar coin minted in his honour:

The 15th coin in the presidential $1 coin program honors President James Buchanan. It features an image of the president with the inscriptions “James Buchanan”, “In God We Trust”, “15th President” and “1857-1861.”

The reverse side of the coin shows the Statue of Liberty. The ceremonial launch and coin exchange will take place at Wheatland, the former president’s home.

About the only thing that might make this a good idea is if the value is pegged to the pre-Civil War dollar.

August 3, 2010

The Chevy Volt should be called the milliVolt

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Politics, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:54

Unlike the fond hopes of politicians, the Chevrolet Volt isn’t quite the revolutionary breakthrough in transportation we’ve been promised:

The electric Chevrolet Volt will roll off the assembly lines next year.

The price is a staggering $41,000 US — a BMW price for a Chevy.

Price isn’t the only clanger here. The car can only travel for about 65 km on an electric charge. After that, it fires up a gas-powered engine like everything else on the road. So much for reduce, reuse, recycle — this is a car with two engines. Hummers only have one.

And Hummers don’t have a massive battery that’s about as easy to dispose of when the car’s finally done as a tub of PCBs.

The Volt is more than twice as expensive as its non-electric counterparts. It can’t drive far enough to get from one city to another. And when your Volt has a low battery, it literally takes hours to recharge. So maybe it will ready to go when you need it. Maybe it won’t.

I checked; the name “Smart Car” is already taken, but “Dumb Car” is available.

GM knows this. Which is why it plans to produce only 10,000 of them next year.

I’m very much in favour of an economical electric car: the Volt doesn’t meet that definition. It’s been rushed to market for political, not for economic reasons. It’ll be kept in the market regardless of sales figures for the same reason: it allows Barack Obama and senate leaders to point at the Volt as tangible proof that they care about the environment and reducing American dependence on foreign oil.

July 30, 2010

Chevy’s re-Volt-ing new song

Filed under: Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 18:45

Iowahawk tries to find the right way to introduce the new Chevy Volt (click through to get the full linkulacious glory):

Consider, if you will, Chevy’s once proud musical history: In the Fifties, Dinah Shore famously saw the USA in her Chevrolet. In the Sixties the Beach Boys saved their pennies and saved their dimes for a 4-speed dual quad positraction 409, while Shutting Down a 413 Superstock Dodge with a fuel injected Stingray; Paul Revere and the Raiders countered with a porcupine Chevelle SS 396. Those vatos from War rocked the Seventies gas crisis in an Impala Low-ri-der, while Sammy Johns was alright with makin’ love in his creepy Chevy Van. In the Eighties, the Dead Milkmen sang the praises of a Bitchin’ Camaro; In the Nineties the Ramones further egged it on with Go Little Camaro Go.

Fine iPod selections all, and in praise of a revered American car brand. Now behold — if you dare — the brave new world of government-sponsored Chevrolet song.

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