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Drivers in White Lake, Michigan have complained that a sign in front of Lakewood Elementary School is too complicated. But there’s a legal reason why the sign has to this specific:
Bogie Lake Road is home to Lakeland High School, White Lake Middle School and Lakewood Elementary. The school district says the signs are for safety purposes, but it still begs the question: Why the need for six separate time zones?
“We have three different schools, all of which have three different start times and end times,” said Kim Root, communications director with Huron Valley School District. “The law states you have to display the times in their specific windows, you can’t block it off and make it this big chunk of time.”
Video at the link.
Link -via Dave Barry | Photo: WJBK/myFoxDetroit
A lot of guys love their cars, but one man has found true love in his cherry red 1998 Monte Carlo. And by "love," I mean the kissing, romantic kind.
From TLC's TV Series My Strange Addiction:
LinkNathaniel admits he can't go longer than 24 hours without seeing Chase, and that it sometimes brings him to tears to be away from the car. He even has a picture of Chase as his screensaver at work to get him through the day.
But this isn't just a car owner really loving his car -- Nathaniel goes on dates with his car, goes outside to kiss it first thing in the morning and is even intimate with it. He strokes Chase lovingly, gives Chase long bubble baths and even buys Chase birthday gifts.
Pascal Prokop of Switzerland didn’t want to wait for the European cold snap to end. So he yanked the front passenger seat out of his Volvo and put in a wood-burning stove:
Pascal Prokop, who lives in Switzerland, caused a minor internet stir when photos of his stove-car near Mettmenstetten, a town 25 kilometres south of Zurich, began to circulate on Friday. [...]
Mr. Prokop obtained an operating permit for his stove-car from the Swiss Technical Inspection Authority, making it perfectly legal to operate.
You can view larger photos at the link.
Link -via DVICE | Photo: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters
What do you get a cat who has everything? The world's cutest airline, of course! Hello Kitty (which scored over $1 billion in sales every year outside of Japan, to which the NeatoShop duly contributed) has added another way for you to spend your money: the Hello Kitty Jet.
Hiufu Wong of CNN Go has the story:
The carrier has recently launched three Hello Kitty-themed aircraft [Chinese language], on which everything from the fuselage to the flight attendants to the food is kitted out in the kawaii cat brand's images.
Passengers have been purring with delight, according to Anna Wong, an EVA Air public relations officer in Hong Kong. [...]
The new Taipei-based Hello Kitty jets -- called Apple Jet, Global Jet and Magic Jet -- will operate for at least a year on different routes originating from Taipei. [...]
Passengers can also purchase limited edition duty-free products, such as Hello Kitty-shaped pasta, from flight attendants wearing Hello Kitty aprons.
View more pics and details at CNN Go: Link - Thanks Tiffany!
Caleb Kraft decorated his 1977 VW Microbus with a mural of an “octophant,” an elephant head with a trunk and tentacles! That’s not all -he installed handmade stained glass in the van as well. So if you see a Microbus with stained glass and an elephant inside, you know who it is. Or continue reading for a video of the project.
Have you ever seen a plane being washed? It’s just like washing a car, except it takes a bigger crew with rain gear and fire hoses. Here you see a plane getting spruced up before an inspection. -via the Presurfer
Colin Furze takes his souped-up mobility scooter for a spin in the snow, reaching speeds up to 50 miles per hour! If this kind of thing catches on, a stroll through the local mall could become a dangerous excursion. -via BroBible
Did your father say that he walked to school when he was your age? In the snow? Uphill? Both ways?
Well, that ain't so hardcore. In the Netherlands, kids have to pedal their school bus:
Built by Tolkamp Metaalspecials, and sold by the De Cafe Racer company, the bicycle school bus (BCO in Dutch) is powered entirely by children and the one adult driver (although there is an electric motor for tough hills). Its simple design has eight sets of pedals for the kids (ages 4 to 12), a driver seat for the adult, and three bench seats for freeloaders. The top speed is about 10 miles per hour, and features a sound system and canvas awning to ward off rainy days.
Read more at Co.Exist: Link
Jason Torchinsky of Jalopink wrote ten statements about American Presidents and automobiles. Only five of them are true. Can you figure out which ones? Check out the answers at the link:
1. The first President to serve at a time when there was an American-built automobile was Thomas Jefferson.
2. The first car a President ever rode in was a Locomobile.
3. The only President to have owned a rear-engine car prior to becoming President was George H. W. Bush (41), who owned a Chevrolet Corvair from 1962-1966.
4. There are eight car company names in Presidents’ names, divided between seven Presidents.
5. Dwight Eisenhower was the first sitting President to lay rubber, in a Willys Jeep during a visit to Fort Benning in 1959.
6. The Secret Service operates a refresher driving school for Presidents leaving office, most of whom have not driven themselves for four to eight years.
7. Herbert Hoover held the world land speed record for 24 minutes in 1927, when he was allowed to drive Henry Segrave’s “1000hp” Sunbeam at Daytona Beach prior to the record-setting attempt. Hoover clocked in at 161.4 mph, beating the old record of 145.9 mph, just before Segrave set the new record of 203.8 mph.
8. The first car used at a Presidential inauguration was a Packard.
9. President Jimmy Carter had two specially prepared black Chevrolet Chevettes purchased for his official use, to show his commitment to energy efficiency. They were never used, and are now in the Harrah’s collection in Las Vegas.
10. President Nixon mentioned his personal car in his famous “Checkers” speech — a 1950 Oldsmobile.
Link | Photo: US National Archives
The Chariot is Exmovere’s vision for the future of the mobility scooter. Like a Segway PT, it’s guided by movements in the hips and lower torso to signal direction and speed. As a result, users have both hands available for other tasks. There are two videos and more pictures at the link.
Link -via DVICE | Photo: Exmovere Holdings
It may not be a guaranteed in for the biker gang of your choice, but at least you don’t have to put gas in it! The BOXX electric bike is the new square way to get around town without negatively impacting the environment, although people may complain that it’s a bit of an eyesore.
It goes up to 35 mph, so you won’t really be hitting the highway on this bad boy, but maybe the light (120 lbs.) and short (36 inches long) body style is what you’re looking for, like when you need to pick it up and run away from that biker gang you tried to join.
We’ve seen monowheels before, but what made J.H. Purves’s design different from the rest was that it could stand up on its own. Allegedly, it could go up to thirty miles an hour. But as you can see from the above photo, it had at least one serious design flaw.
Link -via Retronaut | Photo via Douglas Self
Lynn S. Keesler of Houston, Texas, became stuck in mud January 15th in her rental car and survived on candy for a week, despite the fact that she was not injured.
Keesler told deputies she saw water by a dairy at 800 W. 500 S. and thought it was the river she needed to cross in order to reach the hotels.
According to the report, Keesler said she tried to drive around the outside of the water but got stuck in the mud. She said the first night that she was stranded, she flashed her headlights all night until the car’s battery ran down. She also said she was able to honk the horn a couple of times when the battery would power up enough.
Keesler said she lived on peanut butter M&Ms and water, and stayed inside the car because she’d always been told not to leave her vehicle if she became stranded.
On the 22nd, the water began rising and Keelser went to a nearby house for help. Paramedics checked her out, but she refused a trip to the hospital. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: video from Fox News)
Well,
they already sell the naming rights to stadiums, so why not bridges or
roads?
In order to generate funds for road maintenance, Virginia governor Robert McDonnell is proposing the state sell the naming rights to its bridges and highways. Not everyone's buying the idea, though:
Transit systems are already selling naming rights for stations -- AT&T Station in Philadelphia, for example. And legislation to allow school boards to sell the naming rights for school cafeterias has been introduced in Florida. But the idea is controversial.
"My initial reaction is that the thought of my GPS telling me to take the Starbucks Bridge and make a right onto Burger King Drive is rather depressing, and would represent yet more ceding of public space to private interests," said Max R. Ashburn of Scenic America, a Washington, D.C.,-based group.
This is the 1957 Aurora. We will never know what the public would have thought about it, as only one prototype was built, and it didn’t work well enough to make it to its own press conference. Now wait, before you argue that the Aurora can’t be the world’s ugliest car, check out the huge collection of ugly cars at Dark Roasted Blend. They are all ugly in their own ways. Link
(Image credit: GATSBY Magazine)
Hudson Urban Bicycles decided to try out something interesting in New York’s SoHo neighborhood-chain up a bike, take a picture of it every day and see how long it takes to disappear, piece by piece.
The findings were surprising at first (it took nearly six months for the first piece to be stolen), then slipped rapidly into familiar territory (only took another 30 days or so for the bike to disappear completely).
Hey, at least the thief (or thieves) waited almost six months before snatching the bike up piece by piece, that has to be a world record!
–via Geekosystem
Photo: Jon Simon/Feature Photo
Service for L.L. Bean
Move over, Weinermobile! The L.L. Bean Bootmobile is here go give you the boot!
The Laughing Squid, one of the neatest blogs in the world btw, has the story and video clip:
LinkMaine-based clothing and outdoor equipment retailer L.L. Bean is celebrating 100 years in business with a unique 16-foot-tall vehicle, the L.L. Bean Bootmobile. The vehicle is in the shape of their first (and now iconic) product, the waterproof Maine Hunting Shoe. The Bootmobile will be traveling the United States in 2012 “as a symbol of the quality and craftsmanship that L.L. Bean is known for” for their 100 Year Anniversary celebration.
To reduce drag on the hull, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ new design blows bubbles from holes positioned on the bottom of the ship. This change reduces fuel expenditure, and therefore CO2 emissions and cost. The agricultural conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland has ordered three such ships, which should be finished in 2014.
Link -via DVICE| Image: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
It’s especially good when something like this happens. The scam artists in the BMW backed up and caused the “accident,” but anyone coming in afterward would assume that the front car was rear-ended. Notice the moment when our driver points out that all this is being recorded. -via reddit
Watching this cool kit-car Cobra get turned into a pile of scrap metal probably would have looked a lot cooler from the outside, but at least you get to see how crazy a crash like this is from the drivers perspective! Here’s how he describes the incident:
On the front straight doing 130mph, something breaks. The cobra veers hard right and off track. The car leaves a 6O foot gash in the asphalt as it veered before leaving the track and continued for an additional 500 feet off track to its resting point. I received only minor injuries to my left knee and bruised ribs.
Why he records himself driving around the track is anyone’s guess, but I bet he was happy the camera was rolling the day he almost died!
–via Geekologie
Can’t afford to tow your baby Corvette with a full-sized one? Then maybe you could use a pedal-powered Porsche instead.
Via BoingBoing
According to the inventor, Camp-Inn, this camper can sleep four people. Judging from the interior photos at the link, I’d say that’s a plausible claim. Owners can probably modify it to have a toilet and a galley, but it’d take creative thinking.
Link -via Glenn Reynolds | Photo: Camp-Inn
Previously: Prius Stretch Limo
The cute little fella even has his own trailer! Oh, they grow up so fast. Enjoy these years while you can.
Link -via Jalopink | Photo: Twitter user LedsKat
To
deter people from "train surfing," where they sit on the roofs
of carriages, Indonesian authorities resorted to knocking 'em off with
concrete balls!
Previous attempts to deter roof riders included spraying roofs with paint, spreading oil on carriages and hiring musicians to perform safety songs.
Correspondents say those initiatives have failed. Officials hope that the latest move will prove to be the ultimate deterrent.
Previously on Neatorama: Indonesians to Spray Train Roof Riders, Lying on Train Tracks is a Folk Remedy
Big Daddy Vini, the legendary car customizer, build this portable billiard hall onto an old Chevrolet Monte Carlo chassis. When it’s on site, levels make sure that the table is properly balanced. The cab features a refrigerator and a television set for all of your hustling needs. View more pictures and videos at the link.
Previously: Volkswagen Hippie Van Pool Table
The Dynamic & Intuitive Control Experience (DICE) is an experimental system that could allow people to control cars by moving their hands in front of sensors. It also has options to access social media and entertainment options while driving. What could possibly go wrong?
This might just be the best license plate joke I’ve ever seen. While the rest of the license plates on this Mental Floss list are all pretty funny, this one certainly takes the cake.
Photo: Sedena
Taking a page from the A-Team, drug cartels of Mexico are creating their own DIY, Mad Max (Mad Mex?)-styled armored vehicles. This one above was captured in a metalworking shop:
The completed versions were bigger than what has been found before. Built on three-axle truck beds, they had room for 20 armed men, one official said. They were covered with inch-thick steel, which could withstand 50-caliber fire, and each had been equipped with insulation.
The Mexican Army wasn't impressed, though that may not be the point of these monsters-on-wheels:
The Mexican Army officials do not seem particularly intimidated. They have criticized the machines for being difficult to maneuver, noting that they are designed to frighten rivals.
But for most Mexicans, the mere sight of the seized narco-rhino monsters in military photographs offers a stark reminder that in the battle against crime here there is no place more dangerous than Mexico’s roads.
Link | More Narco Tanks at Telstar Logistics
Science fiction movies such as Demolition Man inform us that the future of locksmithing lies in biometric recognition technology, like retinal scans. They were partially right. Locks will scan users’ body parts, but not always the eyes. Researchers at the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology have developed a car seat that measures and evaluates the body shape of the person sitting in it:
The trick is that the system measures the pressure people apply on the seat through a set of 360 sensors.
Each sensor is measuring pressure by its own and sends the information to a laptop, which aggregates the information to show key data like the highest value of pressure, area of contact on the seat (see below), and other factors. According to its makers, the system was able to identify drivers with 98% accuracy during experiments.
For every lock, there’s a lockpick. How do you think thieves will crack this system?
Link -via Technabob | Photo: Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology
If you love race cars, then you might just like these fantastic Prada pumps based on the some of the most popular cars of the 50′s and 60′s. It’s a great blend between classic and modern styles.
Link Via Laughing Squid
