An agency responsible for parking tickets has a budget deficit. What will they do to balance the books for the year? The San Francisco Examiner says the SFMTA is about to go on a meter warpath.
[Chief Operating Officer John] Haley said the agency, which has a total budget of $775 million, will be putting together a recovery plan to see if it can still meet its projections for the year, which would require more tickets to be issued during the next several months than planned.
I find it funny that they just come out and say they are going to issue more tickets to meet their budget. This is always a possibility but I usually thought it was conspiracy and cynical at best.
The article also gives several possible theories about the cause of the problem such as staff shortages (which saves money, no?), construction work (for which they are reimbursed) and issuing fewer tickets while helping with special events (like Baseball games, also reimbursed).
Mahindra once said they would deliver light diesel-powered pickup trucks to America at the end of 2009. Then they went silent. Now they have written to say the trucks may still come early next year if they can get through the EPA process, find enough parts, and have any left over from domestic sales. Why does this import/export situation seem backwards to me? It used to be Detroit telling the world they might have to wait:
While I cannot give you a firm answer on timing, I can tell you in my estimation, trucks will arrive in the spring of 2011.
Mahindra has applied for and received their EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) certificate, which means the vehicles have passed emission requirements. They also filed with (NHTSA) National Highway Safety Administration, which handles US standards for safety.
With these hurdles completed, it would seem production is imminent, but other factors may hinder the US launch. India’s car sales are on a dramatic trajectory upward. The sales pace combined with an industry wide parts shortage is impacting home market sales, which will have an affect on the United States introduction.
The truck specification sheet can be downloaded from the Mahindra site. The sheet boasts 236 ft/lb of torque while still getting “somewhere around 30 mpg”. This means payload capacity is not only higher than Chevy, Dodge, Ford, Nissan and Toyota but the engine will not struggle under load. A Ford Ranger, for example, puts out only 154 ft/lb torque in their most efficient engine.
So clearly it puts American small pickup trucks to shame on paper in terms of power and efficiency, and Mahindra is rated as one of the “Top 200 Forbes most reputable companies” but it is still up in the air if and when we will be able to test one. That is why for now I have to call it the Naan-Truck.
Truck that never comes? It’s the naan-truck.
Update 2023: Oh, India, why must you be so plain awful?
The Mahindra never came, but they launched this cringeworthy campaign about “worthy men”. Source: https://auto.mahindra.com/pick-up-trucks/
The Germans have convinced Google to “blur” homes to create privacy in Street View. A test run has not been successful. Deutsche Welle says Google has already admitted an imaging error.
Just two days after Web giant Google introduced the first images of Germany in its Street View mapping feature, the company partially shut the service down due to an error that temporarily allowed some blurred-out houses to be clearly viewed.
Approximately 75 voting ballots that disappeared when officials say a San Francisco polling inspector took off with them Tuesday have been found.
John Arntz, San Francisco’s director of elections, said Thursday the ballots were found floating in a pond at the Palace of Fine Arts in the city’s Marina neighborhood.
Arntz described the ballots as “waterlogged.” A memory pack that records information from the ballots, and a voting roster that also disappeared have not been recovered.
I guess you could say he tried to “duck” his responsibilities? Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Would there have been any better protection with electronic voting systems? He might have been less able to pick up a system and throw it into a pond. Then again, electronic voting systems are far more fragile than paper and many have been proven to fail under even the simplest attacks. Had it been electronic, and had he been able to pick it up, carry it and throw it into the pond, the damage probably would have been even higher (more votes per pound destroyed).
…the testers analyzing the Sequoia e-voting machine were able to gain physical access to the system by removing screws to bypass locks
This is much worse than with traditional voting systems, like this San Francisco incident. I mean removing “lose screws” actually could enhance paper ballot security.
