I’m sure you’ve read it by now, but CNN published one heck of a hot take where a writer more or less called for the death of manual transmissions. Among his reasons was, seemingly, the idea that manual transmissions are the tool of polluting men with massive egos, which seems to ignore the reality that lots of women love manual transmissions, too. I said it in our rebuttal and I’ll say it here, cars aren’t inherently a guy thing and Mr. Hockenos shows that some folks have a way to go in realizing that. Anyway, the comments have been a wild read on their own, but one stands out.
British roadster and Airstream owner 3WiperB has found a way to maximize profits before…uh, saving a starving transit system?
Clearly there should only be one car model available to everyone. It should be silver, have 5 seats, have a government approved powertrain unit (ICE if elephants are in charge at the time, and electric if donkeys are in charge that that time), and adequately get you from point a to point b. Suck any fun and individuality out of cars so our commutes can be horrible too. Why have any choices at all? Scratch all that. No cars for anyone. Take the bus.
Mechjaz made me choke on some Gatorade with this response, and that totally didn’t help my sore throat:
Nissan execs, reading your comment:
“Guys, who posted the product strategy online?”
Earlier today, David wrote about the liftgate of the new Toyota 4Runner. He made a comment about fuel economy, but Luxobarge pointed out something humorous:
…they get fuel economy similar to that of a Nimitz-class carrier…
In fairness to the Nimitz, it’s nuclear powered, which means it’s a zero-emission vehicle, which in turn means it gets to park in the good spaces at Whole Foods.
Thank you for that mental picture. It brings a whole new meaning to “urban assault vehicle.” Finally, we take a stop at the article about the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse. This comment is not a joke, but something that may take up the rest of your day. Tim R makes a good point:
NTSB seems to be one of our better run federal agencies.
As does DadBod:
You should check out USCSB
Admittedly, one of the things I do with my free time is read National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigations on plane crashes. Yes, these investigations are very dark, but they are full of fascinating information and a lot of what you read can help you be a better driver, rider, or pilot. These investigations aren’t just to determine a cause but teach lessons so that hopefully, something like the incident under investigation doesn’t happen again.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (USCSB) has investigations posted to YouTube and every one of them is a watch.
Have a great night everyone.
The new phone book is here! I’m important!
Wish I could get that excited about nothin’
I can retire now that my many years of posting inane comments on the web finally paid off with an award
Diesel aircraft carriers have a range of several thousand kilometers before needing to be refueled.
Before needing to be refueled, nuclear powered aircraft carriers have a range of… THREE DECADES.
It’s the best example of the mind-bending power density of fission.
Why can’t I have a fission-powered convertible again?
You know why! My question is, why can’t we have fission powered container ships.
Some countries don’t let nuclear-powered ships dock in their ports. Granted, most of those countries don’t have a need for icebreaker ships…
This is true and the most likely impediment towards wiping out 10% of global emissions. Yay short shortsightedness!
*sigh* can’t believe I still see this question. I refer to the interactive documentary known as Fallout 3. Go ahead and damage one of the nuclear-powered cars and see what happens.
From a quick search, refuelling can take up to three years. Generally includes amild overhaul…
After 30 years, I’d hope so!
Range anxiety begone.
My favorite bit of trivia: because refueling happen so rarely, there’s no gas cap equivalent in the ship structure. Welders cut a hole in the flight deck directly above the reactor. Then cut a hole in the deck below that. Repeat until the reactor area is accessible to a crane. Lift old bits out and new things in. Once that’s done, weld everything back.
If you ever go back to AirVenture…. I spent like 2 hours watching an NTSB investigator giving a presentation on investigations he went through. It was mesmerizing. Somewhere between “Engineering Disasters” and those real life murder mystery shows.
https://www.eaa.org/airventure/eaa-airventure-news-and-multimedia/eaa-airventure-news/eaa-airventure-oshkosh/2022-07-22-ntsb-lessons-learned
Without all the dramatic pauses and stupid repeating things before/after commercials of course. Everything was matter-of-fact and geared towards pilots, and saving lives…. but still as a dumb member of the public I couldn’t do anything but sit down and watch & listen.
If you’re a big fan of deep dives into engineering disaster- could not recommend the podcast w/ slides “Well there’s Your Problem” enough.
Brick Immorter is another one to check out for deep dives into accidents, particularly maritime.
And now, it’s time for the goddamn news.
I can’t recommend WTYP enough to anyone interested in engineering. Likewise, Lions Led By Donkeys is a great one for military history.. with occasional guest Yay Liam!
When the NTSB comes to town, everyone involved in the incident better be ready to catch some hands. I think they’ve even faulted themselves a few times for not pimp slapping a responsible entity hard enough in a previous investigation.
Er, no one should be ready to catch hands when the NTSB comes to town- their mission is very explicitly to improve transportation safety and their investigations require honesty and transparency to do this. Honesty and transparency are hard to come by when you could face legal repercussions for telling the truth.
As a result, we have 49 U.S. code § 1154, part (b) which states:
The NTSB does not pimp slap anyone, and it would be extremely bad if they did. Several countries have learned this the hard way with their investigation boards, such as New Zealand with the Air New Zealand flight 901 crash, Canada with the Arrow Air flight 1285 crash, and India, Pakistan, and Indonesia with essentially every investigation they do. Your investigatory body charged with improving safety must be a) independent and b) unable to impose any legal consequences as a result of their investigation or safety will not improve and lessons paid for in blood will not be learned.
There’s a show I’ve seen in reruns called “Aviation Disasters”. It spends a lot of time on the investigation part. It’s fascinating how good they are at working through the root causes and making changes to procedures to avoid them in the future
There’s also a blog/subreddit run by a user named AdmiralCloudberg which goes into almost-PHD-thesis-levels of explanation of the causes of those crashes. Definitely good coffee reads.
YouTube channel MentourPilot
Is pretty good for aviation incidents.
Excellent point.
One of the things I hate about the US legal system is that in civil liability cases often the evidence is sealed so that no lessons are learned.
Aaaaaaand that’s one of the fastest “subscribe” clicks in modern history.
Their animations are fire. Which, coincidentally, is often what they are investigating.
Total time suck. Amazing.
I’d like to thank the Academy for this COTD…
Where the academy is compose of a tail light fetishist, a rusty Jeep connoisseur, and a Smart car enthusiast/Renaissance Woman for her varied interest and knowledge on campers, aircraft, and motorcycles.
NTSB is also responsible for pipeline safety (it’s considered a mode of transportation, just for fuel instead of people) and has really good trainings on family assistance after disasters.
USC has a Santa Barbra campus?
And I think their mascot is the Banana Slugs!
That’s UCSC, University of California Santa Cruz, that mascot is the banana slug. USC , The University of Southern California has as its mascot Trojans.
Easily confused I suppose.
For when you want to catch both Affluenza AND STI’s!
Some people kind of tried this. Worked until 1991.
It’s charitable of you to describe that system as “working.”
Hopefully the dripping sarcasm in my comment came through. Mechjaz had such a perfect reply!
Sometimes, we reach toward Glory, only to find that Glory had already been reaching toward us.