HotWheels were a decentralization revelation for me as a child and this particular mod-Bronco probably saw the most creative miles
I keep admiring the car companies pushing “retro” versions of their vehicles, although they all seem far less friendly to the right-to-repair movement than the original versions. Does the latest “Fix Or Repair Daily” (FORD) user interface look like it is “mod” friendly to you?
Is there a “box of buttons” replacement option yet for that giant ugly horse picture in the middle of the 2022 dash? Might as well have a factory-installed velvet-Elvis painting on the windshield.
Who is going to wrench apart all those sealed plastic bits in a 2022 Ford Bronco, versus how many carbon fiber, fiberglass and welded aftermarket upgrades and modifications would you naturally find on a 1960s or even 1970s model?
…it’s hard to imagine a situation where the new Bronco would need to be modified…
Oh pleeeeaazzz. Modify it with a classic American electric engine to start (pun intended). If it was good enough for Ford in 1914, it should be good enough for her husband’s legacy in 2022.
Dell has seemingly taken the opposite approach to car manufacturers by giving people the “retro” option of modifying and repairing their newest laptop model.
Or maybe it’s the same approach, such that we’ll see a big aftermarket hot-rod movement for both the newest Dell and Ford?
In any case (pun intended) the new Concept Luna laptop seems very 1990s thinking to me, like back when Dell engineering was cool.
Last week, I was able to check out Concept Luna. Announced today, it’s a laptop aimed at helping Dell achieve its environmental goals by offering parts that are easier to repair, reuse, and recycle. The machine is built to open up easily, so you can harvest its motherboard or other parts to use in future systems. Through this process, Dell hopes that a motherboard will be able to be used in up to three machines.
It actually looks like a laptop I bought from Apple in 1989, just a few years before I became an official Apple repair technician. Yes, I used to have official Apple corporate CDs delivered by the post office, describing in detailed step-by-step videos how to take everything apart. And I used to tear machines down and upgrade or modify them for people, at one point even managing a team of engineers who would de-solder components on boards all day… up hill, both ways.
For years, Apple has monopolized product repair by withholding the parts and tools that customers and independent repair shops need to fix broken products. That’s finally changing. On Nov. 17, Apple announced that it will begin sharing with the public more than 200 parts and tools for its products, starting with the iPhone 12 and 13 lineups and its new Macs. This program will presumably grow to include newer smartphone models and Mac computers.
That’s a huge breakthrough for the growing Right to Repair movement, which has been working to pass legislation to make sure that all Americans have the right to repair not just their phones but anything they buy and own.
A breakthrough in the sense that it returns us to where we were. Maybe next Apple will announce that we can even choose our own desktop backgrounds and fonts.
A new meme floating around lately on social media emphasizes how Arabic has many poetic ways to say “rain”; I mean the bone-chilling stuff that falls from storm clouds, which soon may cry on us with their sorrow (ﻏَﺪﺍً ﺳَﺘُﻤﻄِﺮُ ﺍَﻟﺪُﻧﻴَﺎ ﻋَﻠَﻰ ﺍَﻟﻘِﺼَﺺِ ﺍَﻟﻤُﺠَﺮَّﺣَﺔِ).
Does the rain fall continuously (Al-Wadaq) or in long waves (Al-Shaabeeb), frequent short squalls (Al-Youlool) or intermittently (Al-Martha’ina’)? Is the size of the drop small (Al-Qitqit), misty (A’-Tull) or large (Al-Wabil) and is it strong (Al-Gadaq) or weak (A’-Rihmah/Al-Hameemah)? Was it long and soft (A’Deemah)? Is the rain needed (Al-Ghaith) and nourishing (Al-Jaaw), leave a lot of water around (Al-Bu’aaq) or was it a deluge (A’-Saheetah) that washed away soil (A’-Saahiyah)? Does it cover a wide area (Al-Jada), and does it last many days with the consistency of a spring (Al-Ain)?
While these are beautiful thoughts about the variables of nature and the utility of language, it reminded me also of the old meme also about water from a different angle; all the ways you can say “camel” in Arabic…
السلوف-A female camel that leads other camels to the watering hole to drink
الدفون -A female camel in the middle of a herd of camels
الملواح or الهافة- A female camel that gets thirsty quickly
عيوف-A female camel that smells the water but often doesn’t drink it
مقامح- A female camel that doesn’t drink to heal her affliction
رقوب — A female camel that doesn’t drink from the watering hole when it’s busy, but waits and observes
ملحاح A female camel that doesn’t often leave the watering hole
ميراد A female camel that rushes to get to the watering hole
All food (er, water?) for thought when translating a very outlaw-sounding “revenge” message scrawled on a small fixed-wing drone that was just shot out of the sky by a counter rocket, artillery, and mortar (C-RAM) at 0430 local time near Baghdad International Airport.
Source: Twitter @HeshmatAlaviSource: AFP
Reading right to left…
عمليات (eamaliaat) = operation
ثأر (thar) = revenge
القادة (alqada) = leaders
Now we just need to start translating the Chinese writing for what appears to be a DLW-20 engine or similar variant.
Source: REUTERSSource: REUTERS
The writing on these wings distinguishes the drone from others that dropped from the sky six months ago, as documented on social media then by the “Directorate General of Counter Terrorism (CTD) of the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC)” (دژه تیرۆری کوردستان).
It always surprised me that men’s motorcycle safety equipment didn’t come in the color pink. Baker-Miller pink, for example, has been alleged to reduce aggression.
Baker-Miller pink is a color named for two US Naval officers who first investigated the influence of that specific color. Baker-Miller pink was originally produced by mixing one pint of outdoor semi-gloss red trim paint and one gallon of pure white indoor latex paint (cf. Schauss, 1979). Presumably, the visual processing of the Baker-Miller pink affects neurological and endocrine functions, which in turn reduce physical strength, and thus aggressive behavior (cf. Ott, 1979; Pellegrini, Schauss, & Miller, 1981).
The tint was, in fact, often considered more appropriate for little boys because it was seen as a paler shade or red, which had “masculine,” military undertones.
Regardless of that science about reducing violence by making a color less dark (dubious, it turns out), it’s still fair to say pink is extremely visible as documented in other research.
“Our study determined red-pink high visibility colours, less common in nature, could be searched for without false warnings using our system. The downside of this was some colour-blind workers had difficulty distinguishing pink. Subsequently, a multi-coloured solution including both yellow-green and red-pink may be recommended,” he says.
Studies in England further support the idea that yellow is all-too-common a color in their culture already to make it stand out as a personal safety device.
The results are interesting in that they show the previously held assertion that a bright reflective jacket will improve rider conspicuity may not always be true …
[T]he message seems to be that the most conspicuous outfit will be dictated by the lighting conditions and local environment at the time, which may be extremely variable within the confines of even a fairly short ride.
The studies conclude here that “standing out” is the definitive way to draw attention. Pink, thus, is very visible and almost never found in the kind of high-traffic landscape where motorcyclists are subjected to constant threats.
Go on, search for pink motorcycle gear for men, however. There’s nothing, not a thing, to be found. It’s almost so obvious as the best option, it’s even unavailable making it an even better one. But maybe that will change soon and we’ll return to the past…
There’s a shared recognition that pink can be pretty and powerful, feminine and feminist. Men are turning to it, too — as (they did) in the 18th century.
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death’s construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh lord yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Yeah
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait ’till their judgment day comes
Yeah
Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgment, God is calling
On their knees the war pig’s crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
Oh lord yeah!
It’s fascinating to reflect back on how a young cold-sober god-fearing band were writing an obvious anti-war pacifist song, which was interpreted as being the exact opposite and attacked viciously by white American “Christian” groups.
The band’s “innovative” sound borrowed heavily from a long tradition of “wailing” in American blues.
Consider, for example, how famous and controversial Janis Joplin was already for using a loud and raw screaming style that “scared” people. The following rough newspaper review of Joplin is from 1969, labeling her whitewashed blues style with very prototypical “metal” language an entire year before Black Sabbath released even their first song.
Click to read entire review
Clearly British musicians emulating American music would have seen an opportunity to capitalize on such a style to express their own “blues” of that time.
Black Sabbath’s bassist Geezer Butler explained in a 2010 interview in Noisecreep that he was keying into British working class themes of protest against inequality and powerlessness.
Noisecreep: It’s no secret that you guys drank a lot and experimented with all sorts of drugs. Did that contribute to the creative vibe on Paranoid?
Butler: No, because we really weren’t doing anything back then besides sharing the occasional joint. We couldn’t afford it. We couldn’t even afford booze, so none of us were drinking yet. The music we were making was more a reflection of what we were thinking and experiencing at the time. We weren’t into flower power and good vibes. That was crap to us, because from where we were, everything was bleak and dark. […] We were four working class people in the most industrial part of England, and all we had to look forward to was dead-end jobs in factories. And we thought at any second we’d be called up to drop in to the Vietnam War, because it looked like Britain was going to get involved in it as well. So there wasn’t much future in anything for us.
Butler goes on to explain it was an anti-war protest behind this particular song.
The song was written as ‘Walpurgis,’ which sounds a little like ‘War Pigs.’ But ‘Walpurgis’ is sort of like Christmas for Satanists. And to me, war was the big Satan. It wasn’t about politics or government or anything. It was evil. So I was saying “generals gathered in the masses/just like witches at black masses” to make an analogy. But when we brought it to the record company, they thought ‘Walpurgis’ sounded too Satanic. And that’s when we turned it into ‘War Pigs.’ But we didn’t change the lyrics, because they were already finished.
In an interview from 2015 Butler even doubles-down on his religious upbringing and pacifism.
I was brought up strictly Catholic and I guess I was naïve in thinking that religion shouldn’t be fought over. I always felt that God and Jesus wanted us to love each other. It was just a bad time in Northern Ireland, setting bombs off in England and such. We all believed in Jesus — and yet people were killing each other over it. To me, it was just ridiculous. I thought that if God could see us killing each other in his name, he’d be disgusted.
At this point I have to mention how the latest research on WWI based on documentary evidence suggests that British troops sometimes reported that being sent into outdoor killing fields was an improvement over being drafted into the slow, agonizing programmed death of the class-enforced loneliness and toxicity from indoor factory work.
I am definitely not saying Black Sabbath members would have been happier being drafted into the Vietnam War instead, just that the recorded misery of British life was severe enough some before them even called it a life worse than trench warfare.
Black Sabbath was singing the blues.
War Pigs thus fits quite simply as another anti-war blues song, drawing from the brash “wailing” style of guitar licks and screaming voice popularized decades before in America. Here are some obvious examples from the mid-1960s:
Black Sabbath (who found their band name upon noticing long lines of people trying to get into a 1963 Italian horror film called Black Sabbath) inventively drew from old American blues styles, added Italian horror film marketing, and then wrote lyrics of British mysticism and a post-world-war trend of the youth very intentionally and directly trying to shock a culture trained to not be shocked (given horrors of war) — force audiences to notice and have any kind of reaction.
It was the opposite and arguably more potent method than “hippie” group shame tactics in Lennon’s 1969 syrupy anti-war blues piece “Give Peace a Chance“.
A sardonic Joy Division in 1979 bridged these two styles when they ripped Black Sabbath’s guitar solo to put it into their passive negative sentiment song called New Dawn Fades.
All that being said, Butler wrote the War Pigs lyrics so we have to take his word for it (pun not intended) when he explains the true meaning and motives.
In a SPIN interview from 2013 you can even read why the religiously suggestive word “masses” was repeated at the start.
SPIN: For some reason in “War Pigs,” it always bothered me that you rhymed “generals in their masses” with “just like witches at black masses.” Why use “masses” twice? Did you try to think of a different word?
Butler: I just couldn’t think of anything else to rhyme with it. And a lot of the old Victorian poets used to do stuff like that — rhyming the same word together. It didn’t really bother me. It wasn’t a lesson in poetry or anything.
And as a final thought on musicians borrowing, Ice-T was perhaps being ironic when he sampled War Pigs in his far more poetic 1987 song “Rhyme Pays” (1:50 guitar riff).
