Davestuff

2000 Ford Contour Sport It is an unloved, small American car today, but the Ford Contour was designed to be revolutionary. It was designed to be the first new World Car in 50 years. For some carmakers, the phrase “world car” has a frighteningly compelling ring. Like perpetual motion machines, squaring the circle or mysterious black helicopters, in some minds it can be an obsession that drives you mad, and, if you’re Ford, to the brink of ruin. Standing next to a first (US) generation Contour today, your first reaction is “So what? It’s a used Ford.” Your second, if someone reminds you of the numbers, is: “This thing cost six billion dollars? Didn’t I rent one of these once? Did they actually sell any?” The answer is complicated. If we’re generous, we can call US sales one million (peaking in ‘98 with about 260,000 combined Contour/Mystique). But let’s not forget, this is a World Car, so we can add sales of the foreign market Mondeo (which was comprehensively reworked by 1...

Fun Fact: On March 15, 1863, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles met with my Great- something grandfather William Aspinwall and John Forbes at the Fifth Avenue Hotel to discuss sending the two to England to buy suspected Confederate gunboats, specifically two ironclads under construction by Laird Brothers. For plausible deniability of what would be a covert action in direct contradiction to both Lincoln administration policy and international law, Chase only told two other people in the Union government about it. To lay groundwork, Forbes and Aspinwall personally funded the English activities of Lincoln’s spymaster Thomas Haines Dudley, whose network quickly identified a number of potential targets. Chase provided $10 million in 5-20 treasury bonds to obtain capital in England. Forbes sailed on March 16, and Aspinwall came two days later, bearing his trunks full of bonds. where in early April Forbes and Aspinwall obtained a £600,000 ($3 ...

Introducing the world’s first ever scientifically proven precipitation enhancement device (PED) for small and midsized farms. The Traverado PED© is based on research conducted by the US Army and is the only method of increasing rainfall that works on a small scale—right over your crops. The story of the Traverado PED© is one of coincidence, research and discovery, and for inventor Dr. David Traver Adolphus, it started one day in fourth grade. On that overcast day, his school held one of their periodical air raid drills*. When the big siren on the roof went off, David joined his classmates under their desks, and waited for the all-clear to sound. So he had plenty of time sitting under there to think, and to look out the windows, and then to wonder: “Why did they always seem to hold air raid drills when it rained?” A seed was planted. The seed didn’t sprout until years later, when Dr. Traver Adolphus saw a magazine article about new military technologies, including non-lethal pacif...

" I'd watch an Aaron Sorkin show about people changing cat litter." --Dave The Litter Box INT: Hallway. JIMMY is walking forwards carrying a TRAY OF CAT LITTER in front of him. He is accompanied by LESLIE, a perky Southern blonde; and MICAH, a distinguished middle-aged black man. JIMMY is in the middle of a conversation, which we hear part of as he comes into the frame. JIMMY: So what you're telling me is that the entire litter box changing schedule has been changed? LESLIE: Yes. JIMMY: The entire schedule? LESLIE: Yes. JIMMY: And when did that happen? MICAH: Just now. JIMMY: What do you mean, just now? MICAH: I mean we just changed the entire schedule. JIMMY: But when did you do it? When was there a time when the entire schedule could be changed? LESLIE: At lunch. JIMMY: At lunch? LESLIE: At lunch. JIMMY: As in, today at lunch? LESLIE: Yes. JIMMY: While I was already changing the cat litter, yo...

This got cut by about two-thirds to make it into print. Also the editor hated it. If you’re thinking about buying and selling modified cars, it’s handy if you’re either a complete genius, or don’t mind losing money. We suppose you could just be super lucky, but if you have that kind of kismet you’ll be too busy getting banned from casinos in Vegas and fending off lingerie models to have time worry about hotrods. First, ask yourself  if you’re looking for bang for your buck in a car you’d like to drive; or is money on the other end your ultimate goal? They can be the same thing, but it’s much easier to have a single goal in mind. Either way, if you take the complete genius route, then you have a two-pronged plan of attack. Figure out what the next big thing is and buy it; and at the same time use your massive mental powers to make yourself love that car, whatever it is. Even if you have picked the right next hot car, and on top of that successfully predicted that peopl...

c. 1900 Roberts Electric, one of the oldest known operating electric cars BoingBoing  science editor Maggie Koerth-Baker writes in The New York Times , It will come as no surprise to hear that only a tiny fraction — less than 1 percent — of cars driving along American roads are fully electric. What might be more surprising is the fact that this wasn’t always the case. In 1900, 34 percent of cars in New York, Boston and Chicago were powered by electric motors. Nearly half had steam engines. What happened? Why do we end up embracing one technology while another, better one struggles or fails? Her thesis is that, "Society shapes the development and use of technology," and we don't necessarily end up with the technology best suited for our needs (ie, VHS vs. Betamax). She doesn't really answer the electric car question, but says, We drive gas-powered cars today for a complex set of reasons, Kirsch says, but not because the internal-combustion engine is inherent...

Indistinguishable tall chubby cars from Nissan, VW, Mitsubishi, Vauxhall, Suzuki, Ssangyong, Hyundai, Mercedes, Seat, Renault, Škoda, Toyota, Dacia, Honda, Audi, Ford, Citroën, Kia, Mini, Peugeot and Volvo. Hooray