All about auto

Note to the religious right: auto-replace is not your friend - The Carpetbagger Report:

Auto-correct can be a very helpful feature of any word-processing program. But when conservatives use it, they run the risk of embarrassing themselves.

But the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow website takes the phenomenon one step further with its AP articles. The far-right fundamentalist group replaces the word “gay” in the articles with the word “homosexual.” I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. The group is, after all, pretty far out there.

The problem, of course, is that “gay” does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. My friend Kyle reported this morning that sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials over the weekend. The AFA ran the story, but only after the auto-correct had “fixed” the article.

That means — you guessed it — the track star was renamed “Tyson Homosexual.” The headline on the piece read, “Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials.”

Like most dogs, my hounds, Beau and Gus, love going for rides in the car (OK, Gus sometimes naps on longer trips). Now, it seems, carmakers are beginning to take notice—especially in Japan, where there are now more dogs and cats than kids younger than 15. So look for minivans to become as friendly to furry, four-legged “kids” as they are to more conventional rugrats.

The new Japanese Honda Freed, for example, has a floor low enough for even short-legged dogs to jump into the car. Here in the States, the Honda Element was chosen as the “Best dog car, ever” by (who else?) DogCars.com—for being easy-to-clean and resistant to nose-prints.

We may not all be able to go out and change cars, but now—at the beginning of vacation season—it’s a good time to give some thought to the best ways to travel with our animal companions. PETA’s Web site HelpingAnimals.com has a lot of great tips about how to enjoy a road trip with Rover—or how to take care of him while you’re away.

Of course, if you do decide to take your furry friends along, be sure to plan ahead for pit stops—even without the heat of summer, cars can get way too hot for dogs and cats in no time at all!

Posted by Jeff Mackey

Most of you will have heard of Grand Theft Auto 4 by now, the quintessential “urban sandbox” game where players can steal cars, shoot cops, perform ridiculous stunts and generally live out violent fantasies with no consequence.

Many journalists have condemned this game, but I was determined to keep an open mind. Sure, the drones at NBC and CNN might be stuck in their suburban middle class paradigm, but I am an educated, enlightened member of the digerati.

They might look on the GTA release as an excuse to drum up parental outrage, but I was going to look past the stereotypes and judge this game on its artistic merit.

I fired up the game, grasped the controller and cleared my mind of all prejudice. Five minutes later, I was ready to march on Washington.

I can’t accurately describe the facial expressions I went through as I played this game, but the dialog sounded something like this: “Okay, so I just press this… Ow! Hey, that guy hit me! Can I… Oh, I see. So I just… Wow! Is that guy dead? So you just press this thing and kick him until the money pops out? Can I take his gun? How do I get a car? Well, that was easy, what happens if I… Why are there sirens? The police station? I just stole a car right in front of the police station? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Moral outrage aside, the most annoying thing about GTA4 is trying to use the controller. Stealing cars is easy, but driving them is fiendishly difficult. The vehicles all have unique handling characteristics, and they all require a high degree of dexterity to operate properly — a degree of dexterity that I do not have.

Watching me play GTA4 was like watching a monkey try to open a bottle of Ritalin. My frustration level started high and got worse as I played. After an hour of escalating rage, my friends actually had to grab my hands and pull the controller away — like parents trying to take a steak knife away from a toddler.

I killed dozens of people while playing GTA4, but none of these killings should really qualify as murder. Most of the killings were caused by incompetence, as I flailed and struggled and consistently failed to operate my own body.

The mix of brutality and slapstick was so perfect, the playback would look like a really violent episode of “Mork & Mindy.”

Most of the killings went like this: “No, wait, I didn’t want to turn! How do I… Whoa, now I’m going faster! How do I…” My question was interrupted by a thump and a dwindling scream as an old woman bounced off my hood and flew over the roof of my cab. The sound was so good, I actually heard two thumps — one when I hit her and another one when she landed on my trunk.

I hit the brakes and tried to get out, inadvertently backing over her twice in the process. I ran to her side and delivered three precise kicks to her head as I looked for some kind of “CPR” or “911″ hotkey.

I stood in the street as cars whizzed by, horrified by what I had done. Unable to face it, I turned to my friends. “She’s not really dead, is she? Any minute now she’s gonna stand up and stagger to the hospital, right? Right? Guys? Why won’t anybody answer me?”

Welcome to stage one of Grand Theft Auto: denial.

But GTA4 isn’t just about violence; it’s also about sex. Sex is a very utilitarian thing in the GTA universe. I learned this the hard way, when my character started suffering from blurred vision and a pronounced limp.

I asked what was wrong and my friend said, “Your health is really low. You need to visit a prostitute or eat a hot dog to get it back.”

Yes, in GTA, eating a hot dog and visiting a prostitute are roughly equivalent things. Other reviewers might wish to speculate about how accurately this mirrors the male psyche, but I think I’ll just move on.

I didn’t know how to find or recruit a digital prostitute, so I handed the controller to a friend. The sex in this game has been the subject of a thousand editorials and a dozen lawsuits; I had to see what the fuss was about.

I thought it would be pretty easy to see the sexual content in this game, but finding a prostitute in GTA4 turned out to be a two-hour ordeal. You have to find the right car and go to the right neighborhood. Then you have to wait for the right time of day.

GTA sex workers, plentiful as pigeons when you’re on a job, are remarkably hard to find when you’re looking for one.

I won’t go into detail, except to say that sex in GTA4 was a profound disappointment. On the grand scale of erotic experience I would rate visiting a prostitute in GTA4 somewhere between visiting my academic advisor and standing in the checkout line at Sears.

I haven’t wasted this much time for this little payoff since that time I watched “Porky’s” on TBS.

That’s what I really took away from my journey to Liberty City. The violence was rendered in magnificent detail, but the sex was kind of an afterthought — typical of our media in general and of the world of video games in particular.

Make no mistake, GTA4 is an ugly, brutal game. I was bothered, not just by the violence itself, but by the sexy nihilism of the whole thing. GTA4 felt like a rap song or a Tarantino film — turning violence into something funny and cool.

I could make excuses for it if the victims were all mobsters and crooked cops, but most of the victims in GTA are normal people — innocent civilians caught in the path of this digitized psychopath.

The brutality took me out of the game and ruined what is, technically, an amazing experience. The story is very strong. The city is rendered in stunning detail and the physics engine is incredible.

The characters are stereotypes but you can see flashes of charm and depth from time to time. I felt an odd mix of admiration and disgust as I put down the controller and walked away from GTA4.

My friend Sarah said it best. “This game wasn’t meant for us, Duff. If we had this at home we would just ride around all day, obeying traffic laws and listening to the radio.”

P.S. Concerned about the mature content in this review, I ran it by my editors, Shelly and Karen. Karen’s first response was, “Why are you picking on Sears?”

Tesla Electric Car Factory in the Bay Area
This story is still breaking, but here’s what we know so far: The Tesla Motors electric car factory that was supposed to be built in New Mexico will instead be built in California, in the Bay Area, thanks to help from governor Schwarzenegger (a $9 million incentive package is mentioned by TechCrunch). Whitestar Electric Sedan now “Model S”
From the start, we knew that Tesla’s plan was to start at the top of the market with the Electric Roadster, and then progressively move down. The second step is an a…

Having recently been in the company of another heroic, car-free radical like myself, who rode her bike through the rain without a second thought like a badass to meet me the other night, I realized that a status report on living car-free in MSP was long overdue.

Now, before I get too smug, I recognize that a car-free lifestyle is not possible for people with certain careers and obligations. At some stage, cars are absolutely necessary. Of course they are. My argument is that 75% of the people on the road at any given moment don’t really need to be in their cars - or alone in their cars when, say, commuting - but refuse to consider the alternatives (public transport, car-pooling, biking, walking) due to being a glassy-eyed victim of media programming, a false idea of time-saving convenience and/or utter laziness. That’s my premise. If you’re a professional errand runner or a door-to-door baby grand piano salesman, then ignore my taunts and scolding, but in return do us all a favor and cease with the cell phone fiddling. I know you think you can do both, but 98% of you can’t and I have video to prove it.

Since my last report, it’s finally gotten warm, I’ve left town three times and I’ve relocated to my 26th floor, bitchin’ new condo, bang in the center of downtown Minneapolis. I’m still shopping around, but with the right pair of porro prisms binoculars, with something like a 7 x 50 magnification/aperture rating and image stabilization, I’ll soon be merrily enjoying the drunken antics outside the Dome as well as the tattoos and piercings of the sun bathers on the deck 11 floors below.

As I’ve highlighted before, a near-European lifestyle can be attained here in downtown with only a little planning, few concessions and the willingness to engage in modest walking. Virtually every important bus line as well as LRT passes within four blocks of my building, so I’ve become a wizard of public transport and can get pretty much anywhere in a single ride. And while car-burdened people continue to slam public transport with their nah-nah-nah whining about wasting their lives standing at LRT stations and stewing on slow-moving buses, I’m still convinced that after you factor in searching for parking spots and sitting in traffic jams, people in cars spend pretty much the same amount of time in transit at the end of the week as people on public transport. Plus, when you’re on public transport you can play with your smart phone to your heart’s content without fear that I’ll put a Romanian curse on your reproductive organs.

Though I can effectively stock my kitchen with items from Target, the farmer’s market and Haskell’s, I’ve taken to hopping on LRT every other week or so and visiting the Cub Foods on Minnehaha and Lake for the superior selection and prices. Also, though it hasn’t yet been necessary after all the wine I hoarded during Haskell’s Nickel Sale in April, I imagine I’ll be biking over the Mississippi, armed with my largest backpack, to restock the wine closet during frequent sales at Surdyk’s. It sounds like a pain, but something about carrying an $8 bottle of wine on your back for two miles makes it suddenly taste like a $20 bottle. Cider too, but wait a while before opening it.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the giddying novelty of being connected to the Skyway. I’m actually kinda looking forward to next winter. I plan to make a habit of running errands over lunchtime, wearing shorts, a tank top, flip-flops and a three-foot diameter sombrero, while carrying an open Strongbow (are open cans legal in the Skyway?). I can’t wait to drink in the wretched envy of all the people wearing five layers, trying to save shoes ruined by oily slush and dunking their frozen hands in the Crystal Court fountain to get the feeling back after hiking in from their $150 per month parking spots.

On a disappointing note, my grand intentions to ride my bike everywhere have been sabotaged by a freak, enduring hip boo-boo that is clearly not going to go away on its own, but I still haven’t done anything to correct it for a number of denial-fueled reasons. The few times I’ve been on my bike, it’s been a slow ride on the small chain ring, using more deliberate, sluggish caution with my movements than a senior standing in my way at the grocery store.

Here’s some stats for the statistically inclined:

• Amount of money I’ve spent on (local) transport so far in 2008: ~$60 (this is a misleading number, because I work from home and I’ve been out of town for a cumulative seven weeks)

• Number of times friends have picked me up instead of letting me get myself our destination on public transport so far in 2008 because “God dammit Leif, it’s just easier!”: ~8

• Number of times plans were ostensibly made at my place, instead of a friend’s place due solely to my carlessness: ~4

• Number of times that I really needed a vehicle: 2 (both times for trips to IKEA)

• Number of social engagements I’ve wimped out on due to poor bus connections or laze: 2

I’ll concede that some of the numbers seem to indicate that my car-free lifestyle is simply making my friends drive a little more, though in those cases I have been careful to make this worth their while by tempting them with food, drink, or movies on 50 Absolutely Not Excessive Inches of Plasma TV Goodness.

Finally, because I haven’t said it lately, I must reiterate how much I love my bitchin’ new condo. The location, the tranquility, the comfort, the convenience… I get weepy when I think about how I have to leave it again next week for my second trip to Romania. Though 606 square feet seems small on paper, it’s absolutely perfect for one person who is diligent about not buying unnecessary crap and can control the packrat impulse.

And sweet Buddha, the view…

With Solar Panels, People Power and its From Hungary

        The Antro-Solo of Hungary.

About 15 years ago, the streets of Budapest were still lined with Trabants and Ladas-an homage to their Soviet past. Today, there are fewer of these compressed cardboard cars that took years off one’s life. The future might look a bit different though.

A few weeks ago, the Antro Solo was unveiled at the Budapest Museum of Transport. The car is a gas-electric hybrid, with top speeds of 87 mph and solar panels on the roof that store energy in the car’s battery for short trips of 15-25km. And the best part, each of the three seats has pedals that also charge the car’s battery. These people apparently are used to Budapest traffic, so they figure they might as well get some exercise in there. 

 
I love this car. But we have decided that it looks like a small dust-buster. Soon enough they will all look like this though! The Antro Solo is set to be on the market in 2012 for about $20,000. This car and I share a mother-country, so when I go there this August, I will be certain to check out the museum and get the beat from the street on whether this thing is a go.

June 30, 2008

The CG-Lock is not just for child car booster seats…adults see major benefits too! Read what a police officer in England says:

“I am a serving Police officer on a specialist unit and after suffering a back injury whilst on duty around three years ago, I have had trouble sitting in a car for any length of time.

“I have had an operation on my back to rectify the damage but this seemed to do little for me.

“Cut back to late last year when I saw the CG Lock at the Top Gear MPH Show, I got one of these and gave it a try. This may sound strange but I was pottering around the house about three moths after getting the CG Lock and I thought to myself that I hadn’t had any sciatica, those horrible shooting pains down your lower back and legs, for some time.

“The only thing that had changed a that time was that I was using the CG Lock every time I used a car. I used it in my own car to and from work and transferred it to my work car when I got there.

“I found it greatly improved my posture and kept me snug in my seat, which has benefitted me greatly. I am even more convinced the CG Lock is the sole cause of this, as I didn’t use it for around 4 weeks earlier this year and my sciatica came back.

“I now never go out without it and the back pains have gone again.

“Would I recommend this item to anyone with back pain? Well, everyone’s back is different but if you suffer from back pain or sciatica, the price of one of these is nothing compared to the better quality of life it has given me - I’m 27 and now feel like I did when I was 23/24 before I was injured. So I’d say, go on, give it a go.

“It really has made the difference to me and I have recommended it to family and friends and also brought it to the attention of my HR department at work. Thank you CG Lock team.”

JJ, Policeman, S England. (Kept anonymous due to Police regulations)

Tales in Renting a Car Over a Holiday Wekeend:

I’d probably have more luck doing any the following: getting to work under 20 minutes, climbing the scaffolding of the Brooklyn Bridge waterfalls, making $2 a word.

I’m not having so much luck in the renting-a-car department. I tried Hertz, Alamo, Budget, Avis, Enterprise, Dollar, and every otherloony rental service. Sold out. Nein. Nunca. There may or may not be a wagon available in New Jersey if I go pick it up yesterday.

I even asked my friend if I could rent his car — the one that he owns.

It’s evident that I’m new to the not-having-a-car lifestyle. (I got an offer on my car over the weekend! Woohoo, currently all it does is rack up parking tickets at my parents house). I stopped liking the Jitney when I was 12 (incidentally that was the same year they stopped serving blueberry muffins on board). Everything about it makes me insane. It’s painfully slow. It makes me want to gauge my eyes out while breaking complimentary pretzels in my sweaty palms. I’ve never taken the LIRR out there, but I hear it holds just as many problems.

1) Get a driver’s license. These are remarkably useful things to have, especially in North America.

2) Get a credit card that insures rental cars against collision and loss. Such cards often charge an annual fee, but will pay for themselves if you rent as rarely as once a year - buying that insurance from the rentacar company often costs ~$15 per rental day. Make sure that card is paid up, as the insurance may lapse if you’re past due, and bear in mind you have to use it to rent the car.

3) Book online, in advance, preferably with at least one Saturday-night stay. I generally use Expedia to comparison-shop the various major chains, then go to the cheapest chain’s corporate site and book a car there. I rarely wind up paying more than $25/day.

4) You don’t need to provide a credit card number to rent a car, so feel free to book more than one, just in case.

5) Save money when you book. The bewildering rentacar business model includes all manner of “promotion codes”, “discount codes”, etc. Taking 30 seconds to find such a code online at places like RedFlagDeals or MouseSavers (of all places) can save you 15-20% or even more. Also, check the company’s “Deals” page for special offers. Also, note that renting for a week can be cheaper than renting for 4 days.

5) Watch out for gotchas. Your mileage may not be unlimited. You may not be allowed to drive out of province/state/country, or if you do, the terms and conditions may change dramatically. (For example, Thrifty and Dollar in Quebec forbid you from leaving Quebec; Enterprise changes from “unlimited mileage” to “expensive, limited mileage” if you cross the border into the USA; Avis does the same trick on weekends.) Don’t lie; many rentacars have onboard GPS trackers.

6) If renting in Europe, or actually anywhere outside of North America, either be comfortable driving a stick, or make it very very clear that you want an automatic.

7) If you are going to a faraway place, you may need an International Driver’s License, which your home country automobile association can provide. However, it’s an annoyance and only lasts one year. In practice, rich countries generally just accept each other’s licensing systems, and poor countries are more willing to rent without such paperwork, so I’ve only ever needed one of these in South Africa, which only accepts foreign English-language driver’s licenses. (Quebec’s licenses are in French. This has never been a problem in the USA, but can be elsewhere. They also don’t obviously indicate date of birth, which is annoying.)

8) Look for smaller, independent car rental places if you don’t have a credit card, or if you’re under 25, or if you want to rent a luxury car, or if you want to rent long-term. In particular, I recommend Super Cheap Car Rental if you need a car in California, esp. long-term, and you’re not automotively vain: they provide well-used but well-maintained vehicles for reasonable monthly fees that include all insurance. Also, they’re nice people.

9) In the USA you’re often asked if you want “liability insurance” for ~$20/day (which is sometimes more than the car itself!), and it’s incredibly hard to get a straight answer on whether you actually need this or not. In Canada the cultural context is such that the notion of going to and/or doing anything in the USA without copious insurance, lest you break a leg or get sued or something equally awful, is perceived with great trepidation. My impression is that rental car companies are generally required to provide the legal minimum of liability insurance, but I dunno whether this covers you out-of-state. In general I turn it down and then drive nervously.

10) Sometimes one-way rentals are very cheap; I once got a one-way rental from Phoenix to L.A. for $9.99/day and no extra one-way charge, presumably because Avis had a glut. Sometimes they’re very not. Sometimes it’s free to return a car to a different location in the same city where you rented it; sometimes it’s not. Check in advance.

11) Check the car for damage before you drive it away, lest you get charged for it later. Although the one time this happened I sent them a scorching email and they immediately dropped their claim.

12) If your license has been suspended, don’t rent from Thrifty, as they will actually check. (This is how I found out my U.S. license was suspended some years ago. I had been renting cars regularly from other companies for months.)

13) You will have an noticeably easier time at the U.S./Canada border if you’re driving a rental car; the guards presumably figure “well, they might be dodging the cops, smuggling drugs, and planning to work here illegally, but hey, no problem, they’ll never escape the wrath of Hertz!”

14) Don’t return the car late. You get a “grace period” of maybe an hour, or even less; after that they start charging you usurious fees. Also, try to return it full, or they’ll charge you amazing amounts for the gas you didn’t put in the tank, and then rent the same car, unfilled, to the next customer and tell them to bring it back with the needle where it began. I think rental companies actually make most of their profits from surcharges and insurance.

15) If you leave something in the car, they’re actually really good about getting it back to you; Avis once mailed me (prescription) sunglasses I had forgotten from California to Canada, on their dime.

16) If you drive a rental car to Burning Man, try to wash it thoroughly and then bring it back at a 24-hour automated-return location, because the employees will be rather upset with you, and not without reason (the engine will be coated with playa dust even if you never popped the hood.)