Why yes, I was actually thinking about, well, someday, buying one of those new all-electric Chevy Volts. Then I began to see glimmerings of government hype and then I suddenly realized, whoops, it’s not all-electric.
It’s another hybrid—albeit a mere four-seater at $41,000 (minus a federal deficit-increasing tax subsidy of $7,500) built with the usual clunky Detroit engineering. In other words, it’s an Obamalot boondoggle.
UPDATE: Car Of The Year, eh? Someone paid big bucks for these.
Comments Off on The Volt’s leaky battery
Posted in Obamalot, Science/Engineering
Tagged Car of The Year, Chevy Volt
Spam must really pay, or else it just appeals to people criminals whose egos must be continually jollied by annoying harming others. See the search engine redirect virus/malware/whathaveyou:
Instead of getting the page you’re interested in, Google or some other search engine sends your click off to a paid advertising link of little use—except, presumably, to the spammer’s bank (or at least ego) account.
What’s worse is that the browser back button then doesn’t work. You can’t easily return to the search results. Sigh. One more roadkill accident to clean up on the old data superhighway.
Try doing what I do: clicking cache for the search link you want. Then click the site’s link at the top of the cache page. Works for Firefox 3.6.12, so far, anyhow. (You can also unclick enable on the Javascript, but you have to remember to turn it back on.)
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Posted in Science/Engineering, Scribbles
Tagged Google's redirecting, redirect virus, redirecting search engine results
Mr. B’s Webelos II Cub Scout den is building a catapult this morning on some rural land northwest of the rancho.
Presumably a good deal smaller (and less dangerous) than this Roman ballista. I hope so, anyhow.
It’s part of their engineering achievement dealie for their Arrow of Light.
Don’t ask me what the AoL means. I was in Boy Scouts but never finished Cubs, if they even had AoLs back in my personal Dark Ages.
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Posted in Mr. Boy, Rancho Roly Poly, Science/Engineering
Tagged Arrow of Light, catapult, Cub Scouts, Roman ballista, Webelos II
Little known outside of a select few Civil War buffs was the early Union space program designed to put an abolitionist on the streets of Richmond, if not the moon. Heck, they’d take either one. It was for sure their generals weren’t getting it done. Didn’t work, of course, or history would have recorded it. Uh, maybe.
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Posted in Civil War, Science/Engineering, Scribbles, Space
Count me as one of the world’s few who have not seen the Chilean rescue on the rube tube. Bigger audience apparently than the World’s Cup soccer to-do. With more to come:
“I’ll be first on line to buy [their book] to find out how they maintained their discipline in rationing such small amounts of food during that first 17 days when they didn’t know if they’d be rescued. I can imagine doing that for a week or so, but as one week turns into two and you’re starving and desperate, discipline is bound to break down — or not, apparently.”
I did pass by the spectacle last night switching channels looking for the final Texas Rangers game. And there is the inevitable skepticism: “I think it’s all a hoax… the ‘rescue’ is actually happening on the desert in Arizona…like the ‘moon landing’/sarc.”
UPDATE: And then they were all rescued. The end. Or, only the beginning?
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Posted in Science/Engineering, South of the Border
Tagged Chilean mine rescue
Blogrolling has died again for the umpteenth time and until I can get TFG to explain to me why setting up my own via the Links category on the dashboard here sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, there won’t be one here for you to use. Sorry about that. Stand by, however, biplane lovers, for another, really kewl picture of a biplane—the old Brit Swordfish. (And, no, I’m not going to link to Blogrolling. If it’s been a POS for me, lately, why should I direct you there?)
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Posted in Science/Engineering, Scribbles
Tagged Blogrolling hacked again
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 