Plates will be compared to databases of stolen or wanted cars, with matches triggering an immediate alert to local officers. If detectives are investigating a crime, they will be able to search the records to try to find possible suspects. [...]

"If it lowers the crime rate even a little bit, then it’s a great idea," said Yami Anolik, a 64-year-old real estate investor whose husband, Al Anolik, spoke in favor of the cameras at the meeting.

She said she did not share the privacy concerns of some of her neighbors, explaining, "If you’re driving on a public road, you gave up your privacy already. If you want to be private, stay at home."

Do you think this is a good idea? Link
(Photo: CJ Sorg [Flickr])

An on-board security team repelled the attack by using evasive maneuvers, small-arms fire and a Long Range Acoustic Device, which can beam earsplitting alarm tones, the fleet said. [...]

The owners of the Maersk Alabama have spent a considerable amount of money since the April hijacking to make the vessel pirate-proof, Murphy said, including structural features and safety equipment. The most dramatic change is what he called a security force of "highly trained ex-military personnel."

"Somali pirates understand one thing and only one thing, and that’s force," said Capt. Joseph Murphy, who teaches maritime security at the school. "They analyze risk very carefully, and when the risk is too high they are going to step back. They are not going to jeopardize themselves."

The wife of the Maersk Alabama’s captain, Paul Rochford, told WBZ-AM radio in Boston that she was "really happy" there were weapons on board for this attack.

"It probably surprised the pirates. They were probably shocked," Kimberly Rochford. "I’m really happy at least it didn’t turn out like the last time."

Link

Long Range Acoustic Device? Turns out it’s an acoustic cannon (or super megaphone) that produce 150 decibels of sound, causing excruciating headache and ear pain. From Spiegel:

Until now, it wasn’t widely known that the US Defense Department was sharing the so-called Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) with commercial cruise ships. The weapon is essentially a small dish that beams hellishly loud noise that is deafening but not lethal. Weighing 20 kilograms and as big as a TV satellite dish, the device looks deceptively harmless. But once trained on its target, it blasts a tight beam of painful siren-like sound.

It’s not known how the grinning pirates 160 kilometers off the coast of the Horn of Africa reacted as they suddenly were hit by the LRAD. But they were close, and the closer one is to the sonic cannon, the worse the effect is. It’s possible they received permanent hearing damage, but at the very least they experienced an excruciating headache and ear pain to the point that they could no longer see or hear. They also quickly lost the desire to board the ship. Of course, even Captain Blackbeard would have quickly set sail when confronted with 150 decibels of pure noise.

Link

Photo: John Masterson

The Frictionator is a Ford F650 pickup truck equipped with a 7,000 hp GE J85 jet engine. Joe Arnold’s monster truck is capable of reaching speeds up to 200 mph and is street legal (so as long as you don’t use the jet engine).

Official Website via GearFuse | Video

Photo: François Knorreck

The Snaefell is the creation of François Knorreck, a French hospital technician who spent €15,000, 10 years, and 10,000 hours of work on the project. It’s a 1976 Laverda motorcycle with a custom-built sidecar made from Renault, Citroen, BMW, VW and Audi parts. More pictures at the links.

Link via The Presurfer | Official Website

Transit officials have been touting the benefits of public transit for years and apparently these goats got the message. But when they tried to board the C-Tran bus in Vancouver (update 11/18/08 – that’s Vancouver, Washington, by the way, as pointed out in the comment – Thanks John Milligan!), they were turned away, as you can see in this surveillance video.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Tiffany!

Let’s have a little fun: punniest comment will win a free Funny T-Shirt from the Neatorama Shop. One entry per comment, please. You can enter as many as you’d like. Good luck!

Photo: MR38 [Flickr]

Flickr user MR38 has a nifty photoset of bumper cars modded into street legal mini cars (complete with real license plates!) as seen during the annual Cruisin’ Grand festival in Escondido, California.

Does anyone know who made these bumper cars?

Link – via nowthatsnifty

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by ninigoat.

Update 11/13/09 – The creator is Tom Wright. Benchrace has a neat story about the bumper cars: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Article at CoolThings – Thanks marn!

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, best known for its aggressive tactics against whaling vessels, had added a stealthy, high-speed boat to its fleet. At The National Post, Jeremy Barker writes:

The Ady Gil, a bio-diesel powered trimaran, can hit 40 knots and Captain Paul Watson plans to sail it quickly into harms way….The Andy Gil, which has circled the globe in a little over 60 days, has been coated with radar blocking black paint, which will be used as an ‘intercept and blocking’ weapon against the Japanese fleet.

More pictures and video at the link.

Link | Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

The EU is proposing a different type of “train,” which would be comprised of a mixture of trucks, buses, and passenger cars closely following one another in a slipstream, much as race cars do at professional tracks.  The project’s acronym is SARTRE (SAfe Road TRains for the Environment).

The lead vehicle would be handled by a professional driver who would monitor the status of the road train. Those in following vehicles could take their hands off the wheel, read a book or watch TV, while they travel along the motorway. Their vehicle would be controlled by the lead vehicle.

The idea, of course, is to improve fuel economy and to relieve congestion by allowing a greater number of vehicles to occupy a given area of the roadway.  But notice how this concept also solves the problem of texting-while-driving, by removing the “driving” component and allowing the driver to spend his/her entire time texting.  Sounds perfectly logical to me.  What could possibly go wrong?

Link

Ford is developing a seat belt that inflates when the car detects a crash. In The Wall Street Journal, Matthew Dolan writes:

Its inflatable rear seat belts spread crash forces over five times more area of the body than conventional seat belts, said Sue Cischke, Ford group vice president of sustainability, environmental and safety engineering

Each belt’s tubular air bag inflates with cold compressed gas, which flows through a specially designed buckle from a cylinder housed below the seat. The inflatable belt’s accordion-folded bag breaks through the belt fabric as it fills with gas, expanding sideways across the occupant’s body. It looks something like a water wing children wear in the pool before they know how to swim.

Link via Popular Science

Gus Garcia-Roberts from the Miami New Times explains:

In 2004, Kendall native Xavier Cortes was a 37-year-old out-of-work actor in desperate need of a gig. Opportunity came in the classified pages of this newspaper, where an advertisement sought "an extroverted, fun individual, male or female, who knows how to ride rollerblades and isn’t afraid to wear a tutu."

Cortes immediately answered the ad. He was hired by the Coconut Grove Chamber of Commerce. He donned a hot-pink wig and matching tutu, carried a wand, and began each shift with $40 in dimes. For his wage of ten dollars an hour, paid each day by a different Grove business, Cortes skated through the neighborhood putting coins in meters that were about to expire. He left a calling card tucked under windshield wipers. "You’ve just been saved by the Coconut Grove parking-meter fairy," it read, and included a coupon to the business that had donated the dimes.

Cortes’s new occupation was the counterattack strategy employed by Grove business owners who felt under siege by MPA enforcement officers scaring away customers. [...]

Cortes was catcalled by construction workers and berated by teenagers, but to the Grovites who understood his purpose, he was a hero worthy of tips, cigarettes, and free meals. Soon though, he says, a cold war developed between him and MPA officers. "They would try to intimidate me, telling me it was illegal to feed another person’s meter," he recalls. "They’d try to figure out my routes and shifts. I’d see them hiding behind walls spying on me. It got ugly, and it went all the way to the top of the MPA."

Link (Photo: C. Stiles)

YouTube Link

Just in time for snow season!  DC co-founder Ken Block teamed up with Subaru to design and produce the world’s fastest cat-track snow car.  Primarily for reaching alpine backwoods to engage in some fresh boarding, the vehicle is also built for fun as a standalone toy.

Prepared by Vermont SportsCar, performance modifications include 400-hp and features Group N competition rally dampers made by EXE-TC and a KAPS 5-speed close-ratio dog-engagement gearbox. Under the hood sits a 2.5 liter, 4-cylinder, turbocharged and intercooled STI engine tuned with a MOTEC M800 ECU.

Not seen is a trailer that will haul up to four boarders and equipment.  More info here.

Which has a larger ecological footprint, a large dog or an SUV? According to Robert and Brenda Vale, Fido has a Hummer of an eco-footprint:

In "Time to Eat the Dog? The Real Guide to Sustainable Living," authors Robert and Brenda Vale argue that resources required to feed a dog — including the amount of land needed to feed the animals that go into its food — give it about twice the eco-footprint of, say, building and fueling a Toyota Land Cruiser. Noting that a cat’s pawprint was roughly equivalent to a Volkswagen Golf’s, "New Scientist" asked an environmentalist at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, U.K., to independently calculate animals’ environmental impact, and reported that "his figures tallied almost exactly." The study apparently didn’t take into account the emissions of either the SUV or the dogs.

Link

Photo: English Russia

WebUrbanist has a great roundup of pictures of train cars that have been converted to other uses, such as hotels, houses, and bridges. The image above is of a train car that has been turned into a Russian Orthodox church — an emerging trend in Russia.

Link via Make

Photo: Robonable

This is Nissan’s prototype for a personal mobility device. Just step on to the footpads and lean in the direction that you want to go:

The device has two foot boards, both of which are balanced on two wheels. The device’s tilt sensors detect when you shift your weight to turn, traveling at a maximum rate of about 5kph. The foot boards have handle bars attached to help you maintain balance, and can be connected in a variety of positions or separated.

When separated, the device only moves forwards and backwards. To turn, you simply lift and turn your leg as if you were wearing stilts. The overall effect is one of ski-less skis.

Link via DVICE

Quick: what comes to your mind when I say "Ferrari"? A line of gorgeous (and exorbitantly priced) supercars? Formula One racing? How about mule-shoeing, World War I flying ace, and the H1N1 virus?

Let's take a look at Neatorama's Top 10 Neat Facts About Ferrari:

1. A Ten-Year-Old Boy's Love of Racing

Enzo Ferrari, racing for Alfa Romeo (Image: Ferrari)

In 1908, Enzo Ferrari's father took him and his older brother to a race in Bologna. There, he became smitten with racing and wanted to become a race car driver. Ferrari's dream became reality in 1919, when he made his racing debut at the age of 21.

2. Enzo Ferrari was a Mule Shoer

During World War I, Enzo was a blacksmith and mule-shoer for the Italian army.

3. The H1N1 Connection

If you think that the current H1N1/Swine Flu is a new thing, think again: the Influenza virus H1N1 that you hear about all over the news today is the descendant of the virus responsible for the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic that killed as many as 100 million people worldwide.

In 1916, Enzo's father and brother died during an Italian flu outbreak, and in 1918, Enzo himself was stricken with the disease and almost died. Enzo was discharged from the Italian army but upon returning to his home in Modena, he discovered that his family's metal engineering firm had collapsed.

Enzo had to look for a job. When Fiat turned him down, he found a job as a test-driver for a small carmaker called CMN. A year later, his friend got him a job at Alfa Romeo as a race car driver. About ten years later, he started his own racing team, Scuderia ("stable") Ferrari.

4. Enzo was a Bad Ass

In 1919, while driving through the mountains of southern Italy to go to a race, Enzo Ferrari and fellow racer Ugo Sivocci were trapped by deep snow. They were going to be attacked by a pack of wolves but Enzo scared them off with a revolver that he kept with him at all times. They made the race. (Source)

5. Origin of Prancing Horse Logo

Francesco Baracca (c. June 1918)

The black prancing horse in the famous Ferrari logo was originally the symbol of Count Francesco Baracca, a flying ace in the Italian air force during World War I.

In 1923, Enzo Ferrari met Baracca's mother, Countess Paolina, who asked that he use the horse on his cars for good luck. It must've worked for Ferrari though Baracca didn't fare so well: his plane was shot down and he was killed in action at the age of 30.

See also: Neatorama's Evolution of Car Logos

6. How Ferrari Got the Nickname "Il Commendatore"

How did Enzo Ferrari got his nickname "Il Commendatore"? Was it because he's famously prickly and tyrannical? (Ferrari's longtime chief engineer Mauro Forghieri once remarked "As a businessman, he is excellent. As a human being, he is a zero" about him)

Actually, he was given the title Commendatore (literally Knight Commander) in 1927 for his racing accomplishments by the King of Italy Vittorio Emmanuel III. When Italy became a Republic in 1946, all honorary titles were canceled. So, technically, Il Commendatore became just a nickname for Enzo.

7. The Very First Ferrari

Ferrari 125 S (Photo: Daisuke Ido)

The very first car* produced and built under the Ferrari name is the Ferrari 125 S (125 after the engine displacement and S for Sport). I think it's one of the most beautiful cars - if not the most beautiful - Ferrari has ever made (though the 166 MM Barchetta ain't bad).

*Enzo Ferrari did make cars for Alfa Romeo before he started making Ferraris. One of the weirdest cars he ever made was the Alfa Romeo Bimotore, a car with two engines. One in front and another in the back of the driver.

8. The Most Expensive ... Brochure?!

You all know that Ferraris are expensive, but would you believe that even their brochures are pricey? In 1985, a brochure for the 1960's Ferrari 250 Le Mans fetched £1,070 at a Christie's auction in Monaco. A world record till today.

9. Most expensive Ferrari

1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa (Photo: 4WheelsNews)

The most expensive Ferrari ever sold was 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa (lit. "red head" - named that way because its red valve covers). It got 9.02 million euros in a recent auction. In addition to their legendary performance as race cars (the 250 TR won 10 international championships from 1958 to 1961), this model is also ultra rare: only 22 were ever constructed. (Source)

10. Wrecking a $1 Million Car.

You'd expect that when Ferrari made a car to honor its founder, it'd be good. And you'd be right: in 2002 Ferrari introduced the Enzo Ferrari, a sports car built using Formula One technology.

Only 400 cars were ever made ... and so far, 6 14 Enzos have been totaled. At a million bucks EACH!

One strange tale involving a crashed Ferrari Enzo led to the capture of a high-flying Swedish criminal named Stefan "Fat Steve" Eriksson, head of the Uppsala mafia who bilked investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars by creating a failed handheld game unit Gizmondo. It's a fascinating story - if you haven't heard about it, Randall Sullivan of Wired wrote an article explaining the whole thing.

Bonus: Ferrari Factory

Photo: Laurence Yap / Canadian Driver

Want to see the inside of a Ferrari factory? Laurence Yap took a peek inside the Maranello facility and wrote this article for Canadian Driver:

Walk through the Ferrari factory towards the end of the working day – its hours are like regular office hours, Monday through Friday – and it can seem almost like you’re in Willy Wonka’s candy factory. On the line where they make V8-engined F430s, young workers in full Ferrari-red regalia circle around their work stations, smiles on their faces, and a tune whistling from their lips.

Most of the people working on the factory floor are in their 20s and 30s, as a whole chunk of older workers – hired in the sixties – retired recently, all at the same time. So as if building Ferraris wasn’t enough, the whole place buzzes with a lot more energy than your typical car factory. Workers have decorated their stations with Ferrari stickers, Schumacher posters, and other automotive memorabilia; they’re free to wear what they want, but they’re all wearing something red.

Link

Stanford University’s robotics lab has built autonomous cars for several years. Recently, it established a land speed record for a robot car — 140 mph in an Audi TT-S nicknamed “Shelly”. But their next goal is even more ambitious: to have Shelly race the twisted dirt road that leads up to Pike’s Peak. Chris Dannen writes in Fast Company about the changes that allow the car to safely navigate sharper turns at higher speeds:

The new autonomous TT-S is markedly different from Junior, however. Junior was environmentally-aware; it had cameras that could see objects and road features, and it paired that data with GPS data. All that processing required two on-board Linux computers running quad-core Pentium chips and programmed in C and C++.

The new TT-S, unofficially dubbed “Shelly,” uses a different system. It has no cameras, only GPS, and a smaller, less powerful computing box running Sun’s Java Real Time System running on Solaris. Why? Despite Junior’s speedy processors, it still takes the car between 20-50 milliseconds to react to inputs from its sensory equipment. Because the TT-S “Shelly” is traveling at much higher speeds–the team has pushed it over 140 mph–even 20 milliseconds is too much of a delay.

You can view more videos of the project at the link.

Link

The term ghost ship can refer to a mysterious apparition of a ship when a ship is not really there, or it can refer to an abandoned ship found with no crew or passengers, usually under mysterious circumstances. Both kinds are listed in these ten stories spooky enough to share with anyone to whom you want to give nightmares. Pictured is the Baychimo, used in Arctic waters until it became trapped in ice in 1931. The crew was airlifted and the ship abandoned. However, the boat survived to mysteriously float on its own for decades. It was last seen in 1969. Link -via Unique Daily

The Dallas Police Department said it was embarrassed by what it calls a mistake by rookie Officer Gary Bromley after he stopped Ernestina Mondragon for making an illegal U-turn.

In addition for being cited for the U-turn violation, Mondragon received another ticket for being a "non-English speaking driver."

Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle issued an apology:

"We don’t have abilities to determine proficiency in any language, and we shouldn’t be doing it in the first place," Kunkle said. "I apologize to the Spanish-speaking Hispanic community."

After a review of the records, Kunkle said about a half-dozen officers had issued a total of 38 similar citations. He said police would recommend to the courts that any pending cases be dismissed.

Link

For a full-scale test, Adam and Jamie put a layer of clay on a car and did two more sets of runs on their track – one with a smooth clay surface, the other with dimples pressed into it. The respective fuel efficiencies were calculated as 26 and 29 miles per gallon. Although the original myth was invalid, the theory behind it was sound, leading to a final judgment of “Busted, Concept Plausible”.

Discussion threads on several auto forums discussing the Mythbusters episode note that “shark skin” textures on military fighter aircraft (and on America’s Cup yachts) serve the same purpose, that dimpling on the undercarriage of some Lexus cars reduces noise (by reducing friction), and that textured paint is banned on professional race cars.

Mythbusters achieved the dimpled effect using modeling clay applied to the surface of a Ford Taurus.  It’s not clear whether the same effect could be achieved with a ball-peen hammer.

Screencap credit.  A brief YouTube video of the car (not the full episode) is here.

“With this speed bump, people will feel rewarded for obeying the law,” says Carlos Cano, the company’s president.

The technology is relatively basic: The speed bump is formed by two steel plates that form a triangle sticking out of the pavement. When a car tire touches the plate, a patented device under the triangle measures the force of the impact.

If the tire’s impact is gentle enough — that is, if the vehicle is traveling slowly — both plates immediately collapse into the ground under the weight of the car.

Link via DVICE | Image: Sergio Solache, USA Today

Ok we’ve all seen cars lists before but this one has quite a few I’ve never seen before. The three-wheeled Robin, the futuristic Loremo and stout scarab? Weird stuff! Other are quite familiar, like the 1957 Corvette pictured.

During this time cars have had some radical design changes; some for the better and some for the worse. Here are our top pics for the 60 most distinctive and iconic, classic cars, and while you may not like them all – they are memorable.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by digimouse.

Move over, Hummer – there’s a new bad boy macho car (or masculine overcompensation, your pick) in town. Behold the Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition armored car, developed by Russian carmaker RussoBaltique. How bad is this bad boy? Let’s just say that it has seats covered with "whale-penis leather":

On its official website, the company says the whale-penis leather is the same as that used by Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis on the yacht Christina O.

Onassis is rumoured to have had some of the barstools on the yacht, the world’s most expensive at the time, covered in the controversial leather.

The leather is not the only tacky accessory on the Prombron, which Dartz claims is the world’s most expensive SUV.

The bulletproof windows are gold-plated, the exhaust is made of tungsten, the gauges are encrusted with diamonds and rubies and the exterior has a Kevlar coating.

The car also comes with three bottles of the world’s most expensive Vodka, RussoBaltique, although the website does warn prospective buyers not to drink and drive.

Link

Turns out that decision flagged his car for over $19,000 in parking tickets.

When Birmingham parking patrols find cars without license plates parked illegally or at expired meters, they enter seven X’s in place of the plate number, city officials said. The parking citation form calls for a plate number, and the practice is to use X’s when no number is available.

City officials are working to change the entry system to keep Roberson from receiving any additional tickets, Odom said.

“Maybe we need to go with nine X’s, or maybe we just need to leave that part blank altogether,” Dawkins said.

Link via The Obscure Store & Reading Room.

Recycle, reuse, rethink how we look at garbage.  Tires are an especially volatile item, as they take up space and emit terrible fumes when burned.  Check out Oddee’s collection of creative sculptures made from discarded tires.

Link  | Above example found at mo_metalart’s Flickr set.

Previously on Neatorama – Tired.

Update 10/15/09 by Alex: The artist is Mirko Siakkou-Flodin, and this particular tire sculpture is at the Jumeirah Beach Residence in Dubai, UAE. Oddee is a great source of many interesting things, and they usually credit their photos, so I wonder why they didn’t do it in this instance.

Photo: Motoblog.it

An anonymous reader of the Italian-language site Motoblog.it made a Vespa-shaped rocking horse for his nephew Diego. Who wants to take it out for a spin?

Link (Google Translator version) via CrunchGear

Last year, the Jiangsu Head Investment Group and the government of Nanjing, China held a competition for designing a museum for the automobile’s history and achievements.  Italian architect Francesco Gatti and his team won with this entry featuring an interactive element: you drive into the museum.

The architect describes the museum as a “movie sequence in which the principal actor is the car”, a building where two car-related panorama go hand in hand:   on the one hand the architect’s conscious attention to motorway aestheticism and urban scale – the structures and materials remind one of a viaduct – and on the other, his transportation into the museum of the ergonomics of the interior of a car.  The furbishing and details within the edifice are related to and on a scale with its specific functions and it is not difficult for the visitor to imagine that he is in a car on a highway, rather than in a museum.

Link (rendering courtesy of 3GATTI.)

Photo: Norfolk Southern

Norfolk Southern’s NS 999 electric locomotive runs entirely on 1,080 12-volt batteries and produces 1,500 horsepower. From the company’s press release:

NS 999 is an entirely electric locomotive that uses a lead-acid energy storage system comprised of 1,080 12-volt batteries to operate in railroad switching applications without the use of a diesel engine and with zero exhaust emissions. The plug-in locomotive also can regenerate dynamic braking energy through a system provided by Brookville Equipment Company. The recovered dynamic braking energy continually replenishes the energy storage system, and uses this recovered energy for tractive effort in rail operations. The batteries are carefully monitored and controlled through an elaborate battery management system to assure safety and maximum battery life, and when fully charged NS 999 is able to operate three shifts before recharging is required.

Link via Popular Science

Neiman Marcus always has some over-the-top offerings for Christmas -after all, that’s the only reason some folks look at the catalog. This year, how about a cupcake car for only $25,000? Designed by artist Lisa Pongrace, the cupcake runs on electricity and has a top speed of seven miles per hour. Your purchase will be decorated in your favorite flavors. Link -via Buzzfeed

…Sykes called it “A graceful little goddess, the Spirit of Ecstasy, who has selected road travel as her supreme delight and alighted on the prow of a Rolls-Royce motor car to revel in the freshness of the air and the musical sound of her fluttering draperies.”

Today’s Spirit of Ecstasy stands at 3 inches and, for safety, is mounted on a spring-loaded mechanism designed to retract instantly into the radiator shell if struck from any direction. There is a button within the vehicle which can retract/extend the emblem when pressed. She can be made of highly polished stainless steel, sterling silver or 24-carat gold, the sterling silver and gold being optional extras.

Futher details about the ornament are available at Wikipedia and The Telegraph, via the New Shelton wet/dry (whence the photo).