Testing the Crash, 50 years Later

50 years ago, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety began crashing cars into one another, and into solid objects, and rating just how well those cars stayed together.  50 years later, they're patting themselves on the back with a video comparing or pitting a 1959 chevy and a 2009 chevy.  Watch the carnage.



We often make statements suggesting that new cars are shite for construction, and that older cars are truly solid and wonderful pieces of equipment; the stories of people running into brick walls without injuries and only a minor bill from the auto shop for new paint abound.  I have an aunt who was fond of recommending old-ass, safe boat cars as new-driver fodder, because the bigger cars are considered so much safer.

This video makes me think that maybe just some of that is a bit romanticized.

I'm just glad they used a Malibu.  I hate the new versions, but only because I've driven one.  Opposite to the Mini Cooper effect, it's actually smaller inside a Malibu than it looks from the outside.  The Bel Air certainly looked better in its ugly 70s phase than it did in the 50s at least, so that's good news too.

Time Badly Spent

My Christmas holiday is drawing to a close, and I think I have to say I've accomplished very little on my goal list. I've not been so lazy because I've been enjoying a calm, quiet holiday at home -- which I have, but that's not the point.  The point is, I've been sick from about the day before I went on holiday, until now.  I can't shake this cold.

The graph, above, is taken from Google Latitude, a cool little tool to help locate your friends now and then.  It's inaccurate, it's flaky, and it only tracks approximately where the phone happens to be, but it's still pretty shiny.

I can hear the gasp:  How did I, a total whackjob paranoid security nut, actually give this thing the stamp of approval?  Easy:  Once I set my phone down, all concerns about intrusion into my life and movements ends.  If you can't be without your phone for an hour, then maybe you should consider talking to someone about it.  And that's from me, who always has a phone.  Or three.

CatBox

Our kitty has a toybox.  That's not it in the picture (she has many impromptu toyboxes).

In the toybox are

• about a million cardboard inner-tubes from paper towel and bathroom tissue
• bottle caps, like from plastic soda or water bottles
• a moose plush toy
• a frog plush toy
• about 7 pairs of my socks

Okay, cut those numbers in half, because half of this thing is emptied out all over the living room floor at one point or another.  And yes, my socks form a huge part of this cat's toys.  Unable to walk properly while carrying a bundle of socks, she hops like a bunny, and it'll put you in stitches.  We find my socks under the bed, in the hallway, under the couch, on the floor, in her bed, etc.  We're only now discovering the places where she hides things .. and what she hides.  It's bizarre.

This cat plays.  Hard.  Full-on pattering of feet we can hear from downstairs, double-overtime cat hockey, lying in wait behind closed doors for humans to sneak-leap-attack, it all takes its toll on the small cat.  After about 10 minutes, though, she enters Crash Mode and pretty much flops down to sleep.  Middle of the floor?  Sure; great place to sleep.

Usually she bugs humans to sit down so she can crawl up to sleep on your neck.  It's one of the few times she'll actually sit closer than beside a human.  You can tell what she wants when she mews plaintively and quints the droopy eyes a bit.