Yes, this is a problem. Look at a typical truck from the 90s or so, they are tiny compared to today’s trucks.
The same thing is true of cars. Today’s civic is as big as an accord used to be. There is no Del Sol.
We need to turn the incentive knobs that worked so successfully on consumption so we now work on vehicle size.
Also, about the center of gravity discussion: I used to have an old friend that spent decades in business running a body shop. I asked him once what was the worst animal for causing vehicle damage. ( This was in rural South Dakota. I was thinking cow, horse, maybe bison. ) Nope. He said most animals would go up and over the hood, just like the people in the article. He said pigs were the worst. They stay low, going right into the car and not bouncing over. Often resulting in a total loss for that car.
Certainly, as jokes are by far best when they are explained.
In this context the overall discussion is about pitch in the context of music.
Here the jokester takes advantage of pitch having more than one meaning in English. One of the alternate meanings is to throw.
Next the joke selects a banjo and an accordion, two instruments that are less popular and thus more likely to be understood by the general populace as being disparaged, which is a critical component for the audience to correctly infer the alternate meaning of pitch.
You put it all together and we have this hilarious joke:
A perfect throw is when a banjo is tossed into the garbage and it finds its perfect companion in an accordion that has similarly been discarded to the same trash receptacle.
Pitch is another word for throw. The joke is that a perfect throw is one where a banjo Is thrown into the trash (this is already funny if you consider how careful musicians are with their instruments), and what makes it a perfect throw is that it lands on an accordion (the fact that the accordion is already in the trash is also funny) and the fact that one shitty instrument landing exactly on another shitty instrument would be an athletic achievement that is given the name of a desirable musical ability “perfect pitch”, is excellent.
Yeah. I'm British and didn't get it either. Never heard anyone say "pitch" to mean "throw". I've heard it used in baseball but thought it was a technical term like "bowling" in cricket rather than a general word for throw.
Eliminate the dead weight of the V8 engine. What makes a car "fast" off the line is torque, not horsepower. And nothing beats an electric motor for efficient torque.
GM engineers understand this --- but hot rodders still cling to the rumble of ICE.
The batteries on the EV are deadweight hence the need for so much horsepower to get it moving fast, and the additional weight of those batteries and that metal tomb surrounding them is very hard on rubber tires.
That’s before you try to drift if that’s possible with most electric cars but in America, that’s ok because the only thing Americans want to do primarily is go straight fast in a drag race handling and side to side, stability at speed doesn’t matter, a former Mustang GT owner in my early 20s when I didn’t know any better.
Got rid of that ford junker for a car that had less horsepower but a hell of a lot better handling and stability at speed. And yes, it was a German car.
The fastest drag racing cars still are internal combustion. When raw speed is the goal, the torque doesn't have to be efficient, you can get it from an engine spinning away in its power band with a controlled amount of clutch or torque converter slipping.
Well, at least majority gas-powered, as 1064 of its 1250 total horsepower comes from the V-8, with the balance coming from the front electric motor that enables it to leap off the line quicker than the gas-only ZR1.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s electric or gas it strictly how much horsepower you put in and the weight of the car very simple, and neither have anything to do with the handling because if you don’t have that, what is the point?
Krugman. He couldn’t write a single sentence in an article about Europe without mentioning Trump.
This is the same guy that said the internet was not going to be a big thing, made wildly incorrect predictions about everything from post-Covid inflation to Obama-era growth predictions, and was oblivious to the downsides of zero interest rate policy.
At this point, Krugmans work should be considered entertainment at best, or maybe political comedy.
Have a look at the many foreign streamers raving about their visits for the World Cup. It’s refreshing and incredibly uplifting to hear other perspectives.
I’m glad that people are having a good time with the World Cup. Truly.
I know I’m feeling negative at the moment.. but this feels like the “have you tried yoga?” of your president started 2 wars, continues to undermine public health, got a lot of people killed, Congress has completely failed and is complicit in the wrongdoing. It’s bad..
There’s not much I can gather from that guy, as I don’t speak Japanese. I will say I’ve seen several media bits showing Japanese fans remaining after games to pick up trash. It makes me think we could benefit from some parts of Japanese culture.
The main takeaway I got is he said Mexico City people were very friendly and welcoming. For the US, he said the cost of living is high compared to Japan and everything was expensive; he buys groceries in the US so he can cook to cut down expenses.
The Japanese believe that cleaning up after yourself is a moral obligation; similar to what the Germans believe about punctuality.
Something that would help a great deal would be some very public, clearly worded predictions about future events that should happen.
Climate scientists could help convince skeptics by correctly predicting future events. Skeptics could vet the predictions immediately to avoid late refutations. They’d look foolish if they tried to downplay the events if they didn’t raise concerns at the time they were predicted.
Looking fairly at things, predictions along the lines of ‘An inconvenient truth’ did not help. ( A UK high court ruling found at least 9 errors or exaggerations in the film. )
Demonstrating predictability should increase acceptance.
> clearly worded predictions about future events that should happen.
These are already out there.
Extreme weather events are happening with all increasing frequency. But as with the slow boiled frog, when is it a crisis? The denier just claims we have always had extreme weather events, and they are correct (and this sidesteps the argument).
Astrum Earth on Youtube has a couple of videos on climate change in general and the turning of the AMOC in particular with both, schientific explanations and graphs and predictions on the outcome. I found it a reliable source of information, even if they make dramatic thumbnails and music. More to the point, they list a lot of sources you can follow up on.
Sea level rise is a key problem for New Zealand - we have a lot of coast.
At beaches there are poles showing predicted sea levels at various time points.
There are lots of sites that show various predictions for sea level rises for NZ, showing predictions and reality.
Eg: https://www.sealevel.nz/Auckland.html
Thanks for that— the poles sound like a great idea.
Off topic, I love a New Zealand podcast called “Backyard Bluegrass”. The host is a walking encyclopedia of roots music, and he’s got great presentation skills.
Yeah man its just all the people who are jealous that are mad and no other reason.
The billionares hands are clean, the climate is fine, the elections are great, there's nothing wrong, close your eyes, stuff your ears with wax, and keep on trucking :)
From what I have read most of the recent EV companies failed due to investor shenanigans. Fisker and Coda made it to production promising ~$30-40k models, but only really delivered ~$50-70k models before they folded. Slate is posting videos of an operational factory building the model they advertised and seem confident it will be under $30k.
The same thing is true of cars. Today’s civic is as big as an accord used to be. There is no Del Sol.
We need to turn the incentive knobs that worked so successfully on consumption so we now work on vehicle size.
Also, about the center of gravity discussion: I used to have an old friend that spent decades in business running a body shop. I asked him once what was the worst animal for causing vehicle damage. ( This was in rural South Dakota. I was thinking cow, horse, maybe bison. ) Nope. He said most animals would go up and over the hood, just like the people in the article. He said pigs were the worst. They stay low, going right into the car and not bouncing over. Often resulting in a total loss for that car.
reply