Razors Edge

I watched some documentary that showed them manufacturing the fake stuff in Mexico and then smuggling it here. It was NOT A SCIENCE, and there was no way those drugs were remotely something anyone should be taking. Regardless, the market is there, and the smuggler merely had a big baggie of pills, and those were EASILY hidden in the vehicle coming into the US. It's going to be very difficult to control the supply side of things, as these new drugs are cheap to create, easy to transport, and pack a much greater "bank for the buck". We've seen how "whack-a-mole" doesn't seem to have any lasting impact on the drug lords. God knows we killed plenty, and they've killed many many times more of each other. I still remember Scarface from my teenage years. That was almost 40 years ago and was set over 40 years ago. Wow. Interesting too is how when you do change supply downward, but leave demand the same or growing, it just brings MORE money into the situation with a bigger incentive for new bad actors to get into the market of creating drugs.

I saw an Outdoor e-mail today that said, "Long runs train your heart, and sprints train your muscles", and that also relates to cycling or other sports. But what I think is missing, is the activity that trains your soul - which is most important to me. I think long runs, long rides, cross-country skiing, long hikes, etc., not at a race pace certainly give me the REAL result I am after - peace of mind, calmness, happiness, and a general bliss even if my muscles ache a bit later on. I like the "I'm too old for this BS" attitude with exercise. I'm not too old for exercise, but I am far past doing anything that doesn't make me happy I did it Sure, I'm not winning my age group in a race, but damned if almost every time I throw my leg over the bike, I am HAPPY. Same with a hike or other time out exercising is some way or other. And shockingly, even with the blasé attitude toward competing, it turns out training for the fun of it works pretty well.

Lost in Ikea is more likely nowadays.

I bought my nephew a bunch of track awhile back and it set me back $100 pretty quick. Maybe 1/100th of that track set-up! But 40' of track runs $45 on Amazon (maybe cheaper depending upon selection?). So maybe a buck a foot for plain track, but the loops and boosters and then the wood all adds up.

None of us are saying it isn't happening, but I guess it comes down to it being easier to insure the train cares than to secure them? I always point to @ChrisL who has the LEA type of brain, and hope he can describe the nuances of who is in charge of security and why or why not it is getting done the way it is. To some extent, decisions at the prosecutorial level come in to play, but so do other factors.

So we can no longer say "it fell off a truck"? Now its gotta be "It fell off a train"????

You've never even considered running a triathlon, have you??? You should!

And you know where all my other parodies are for the past couple weeks are, correct? I recommend just offering a blanket "10.0!" and saving yourself any extra effort.

You spilled a tear or two before you realized it needed a score, didn't you?

I ain't buying the title of "princess" for a Texan who married an Italian. Nope. BS! Nice house, though. The villa has been the property of the Boncompagni Ludovisi family for 400 years. But an inheritance dispute between the widow of Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi, who died in 2018 at age 77, and his three sons from his first marriage prompted a judicial order to sell it. ... Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, the American-born third wife of the deceased Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi, who has lived in the villa for the better part of two decades, said she had mixed feelings about the failed auction. “I had hoped for some kind of resolution today,” she said, adding that she had come to terms with leaving.

Is it missing a frame pump? Or is that doodad for something else? And I didn't see one on the seat tube, so not sure about any of it. REALLY nice color.

So, we're blaming the Brits? I'm cool with that.

I can keep trying to entice him!

...comes this nugget: DETROIT (AP) — California prosecutors have filed two counts of vehicular manslaughter against the driver of a Tesla on Autopilot who ran a red light, slammed into another car and killed two people in 2019. The defendant appears to be the first person to be charged with a felony in the United States for a fatal crash involving a motorist who was using a partially automated driving system. Los Angeles County prosecutors filed the charges in October, but they came to light only last week. The driver, Kevin George Aziz Riad, 27, has pleaded not guilty. Riad, a limousine service driver, is free on bail while the case is pending. The misuse of Autopilot, which can control steering, speed and braking, has occurred on numerous occasions and is the subject of investigations by two federal agencies. The filing of charges in the California crash could serve notice to drivers who use systems like Autopilot that they cannot rely on them to control vehicles. The criminal charges aren’t the first involving an automated driving system, but they are the first to involve a widely used driver technology. Authorities in Arizona filed a charge of negligent homicide in 2020 against a driver Uber had hired to take part in the testing of a fully autonomous vehicle on public roads. The Uber vehicle, an SUV with the human backup driver on board, struck and killed a pedestrian. By contrast, Autopilot and other driver-assist systems are widely used on roads across the world. An estimated 765,000 Tesla vehicles are equipped with it in the United States alone. In the Tesla crash, police said a Model S was moving at a high speed when it left a freeway and ran a red light in the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena and struck a Honda Civic at an intersection on Dec. 29, 2019. Two people who were in the Civic, Gilberto Alcazar Lopez and Maria Guadalupe Nieves-Lopez died at the scene. Riad and a woman in the Tesla were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries. Criminal charging documents do not mention Autopilot. But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which sent investigators to the crash, confirmed last week that Autopilot was in use in the Tesla at the time of the crash. Riad’s defense attorney did not respond to requests for comment last week, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office declined to discuss the case. Riad’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 23. NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board have been reviewing the widespread misuse of Autopilot by drivers, whose overconfidence and inattention have been blamed for multiple crashes, including fatal ones. In one crash report, the NTSB referred to its misuse as “automation complacency.” The agency said that in a 2018 crash in Culver City, California, in which a Tesla hit a firetruck, the design of the Autopilot system had “permitted the driver to disengage from the driving task.” No one was hurt in that crash. Last May, a California man was arrested after officers noticed his Tesla moving down a freeway with the man in the back seat and no one behind the steering wheel. Teslas that have had Autopilot in use also have hit a highway barrier or tractor-trailers that were crossing roads. NHTSA has sent investigation teams to 26 crashes involving Autopilot since 2016, involving at least 11 deaths. Messages have been left seeking comment from Tesla, which has disbanded its media relations department. Since the Autopilot crashes began, Tesla has updated the software to try to make it harder for drivers to abuse it. It’s also tried to improve Autopilot’s ability to detect emergency vehicles. The company has said that Autopilot and a more sophisticated “Full Self-Driving” system cannot drive themselves and that drivers must pay attention and be ready to react at anytime. “Full Self-Driving” is being tested by hundreds of Tesla owners on public roads in the U.S. Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who studies automated vehicles, said this is the first U.S. case to his knowledge in which serious criminal charges were filed in a fatal crash involving a partially automated driver-assist system. Tesla, he said, could be “criminally, civilly or morally culpable” if it is found to have put a dangerous technology on the road. Donald Slavik, a Colorado lawyer who has served as a consultant in automotive technology lawsuits, including many against Tesla, said he, too, is unaware of any previous felony charges being filed against a U.S. driver who was using partially automated driver technology involved in a fatal crash. The families of Lopez and Nieves-Lopez have sued Tesla and Riad in separate lawsuits. They have alleged negligence by Riad and have accused Tesla of selling defective vehicles that can accelerate suddenly and that lack an effective automatic emergency braking system. A joint trial is scheduled for mid-2023. Lopez’s family, in court documents, alleges that the car “suddenly and unintentionally accelerated to an excessive, unsafe and uncontrollable speed.” Nieves-Lopez’s family further asserts that Riad was an unsafe driver, with multiple moving infractions on his record, and couldn’t handle the high-performance Tesla. Separately, NHTSA is investigating a dozen crashes in which a Tesla on Autopilot ran into several parked emergency vehicles. In the crashes under investigation, at least 17 people were injured and one person was killed. Asked about the manslaughter charges against Riad, the agency issued a statement saying there is no vehicle on sale that can drive itself. And whether or not a car is using a partially automated system, the agency said, “every vehicle requires the human driver to be in control at all times.” NHTSA added that all state laws hold human drivers responsible for operation of their vehicles. Though automated systems can help drivers avoid crashes, the agency said, the technology must be used responsibly. Rafaela Vasquez, the driver in the Uber autonomous test vehicle, was charged in 2020 with negligent homicide after the SUV fatally struck a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix in 2018. Vasquez has pleaded not guilty. Arizona prosecutors declined to file criminal charges against Uber.

Well, you'll have the wife's Tesla drop you there, correct? "Tesla, take me to the trailhead and step on it."

Is that where the four sticks of butter are?

Are you cixelsyd?

A darn good one, correct? No mention of bodily fluids or stinky things? A 10.0! in anyone's book

No worries, zealot. I always find different and/or opposing ideas interesting. "Why" is always a good question to ask about our own actions and also to understand other's actions. I remember when first the GM EV1 came out and later the Prius came out, and both times I scratched my head and was like WTF are these things and who would buy them? But, over time, the Prius - as it evolved and Toyota spread the tech everywhere, and now Tesla with their cars, I see the change more clearly. I'm not in the vanguard on this stuff. I'm not an early adopter. I am, however, completely sold on EV being the single dominant vehicle of the not too distant future. Why? Because it is simpler and better in so many ways. Tech continues to get better as well, so the EV future looks bright, while other tech will move to niche areas (and still trucks!). Not overnight, but more likely over time, it becomes harder for a car manufacturer to invest a billion dollars in old tech - ie redoing an auto plant around refreshed ICE vehicles. If they have to make a market driven decision, the EV factory will be retooled and updated first.

More or less reliable than a Kia with a fuel injected four banger?

If you price that track out, it requires a full time job to afford it!

I saw that and thought @ChrisL might want to call in the Pinkertons! CA needs some muscle.

Drat. I was thinking more an Alice in Wonderland / Jefferson Airplane thing But maybe that's also a bullet??? Like I wrote, I needed the big guns and MoseySue showed up!

My car can sit for a week at a time. When I was commuting, it was bike and metro and walking. Now I WFH, and have no need to drive during the week, but on the weekend, I'll ride/walk/hike for exercise, but often it is a car ride somewhere - maybe to go camp or to the SiLs for a birthday or to a trailhead for a hike or even my Costco run No bus runs to Shenandoah NP from my neighborhood. No bus runs from my suburban home to my SiL's (but could piece a walk-bus-bus-walk/ride option). I could ride to the trailhead of our favorite hikes, but the 30-45 ride each way would make the hike time shorter. I would trust my "future" vehicle to get me there once they go full automated