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auto show

I just got back from the auto show in Toronto. All in all, a fun way to spend a day. It would be a whole lot more useful if I was in the market for a new car. It's a really good way to see what's on the market. This would save a whole lot of running between dealerships. I'll have to remember that in a few years.

Not much to speak of in terms of cool, new, technofetishistic things. Honda had their hydrogen car car on display... Mitsubishi's "Sport Truck concept" reminded me of the El Camino... Transport Canada had a neat exhibit for fuel efficient cars, and apparently the SMART car is going to be on the market in September...

But my favourite part of the show was definitely the design competition. Some of the designs were hilarious (some were cool, too, but hilarious is more fun). This has to win some sort of unintentional comedy award:

Yes, the Crap Mobile. It even has "CRAP MOBILE" emblazoned on the back bumpber (click for big if you don't believe me). The designer is Chinese. His design is "Motivated by Crap Skate," apparently. "Crap Skate" is supposedly some sort of innovation in speed skating, but it's ungooglable for obvious reasons. I wonder if he just spelled something wrong.

Besides the show itself, the two buffet dinners were wonderful. Ill-advised, but wonderful. All in all, a nice weekend. Thanks, John and Morag, for having me a long.

In other news, I'm apparently working on the Mac OS X port of Speak Freely. How'd that happen?

comments:

1 writes:

The hydrogen car looks really interesting. It does make me wonder what would happen if they replaced gas cars for them one for one. I just wonder how the environment would be affected if that many cars filled the atmosphere with water vapor. How much impact on rain fall or increase in humidity would there be do you think? Would more moisture melt the ice caps faster, add to the ice, or have no real effect? It's not that I'm against alternative fuels, I'd really like to see a change to a better source especially one not abundant in the middle east, or even this car but it just raises questions to me. After all, nobody really expected that carbon monoxide exhaust would have as big an effect upon the environment as it does, on air quality for sure and theoretically on temperature.

Submitted 2004-02-22 21:53:10

flying squirrel writes:

I'd also be very happy to see a successor to the hydrocarbon-based internal combustion engine, both for environmental and geopolitical reasons. They're nasty. And old. And not very interesting.

I'm taking a wait and see on the whole hydrogen fuel cell thing. It's new and interesting, but I don't think it's the panacaea that I've heard some wacky pundits claim it to be. (I'm not really worried about excess water in the environment, but then I hadn't really thought about it). For one thing, where do they think the hydrogen is going to come from? You can get it from water (balancing out that equation), but you'll use more energy doing that than the fuel cell will generate. And we'd kind of like to have to generate *less* electricity if at all possible. I've heard or processes that involve getting hydrogen from natural gas or other hydrocarbons, but are they going to be better than just burning that crap? Dunno. They say yes. *shrug*.

Submitted 2004-02-23 06:13:33

Dan writes:

I think it's "Clap Skates".
If you remember the winter Olympics a while back, they were talking about these during the speed skating competition.

The heels on the back of the skates don't attach to the blade, and the front side if attached by a joint that allows the blade to stay in contact with the ice just a bit longer during each 'kick' while you skate. While you ya skate, though, it makes a neat little 'clapping' sound (from the heel and blade meeting up) so they ended up calling it a 'clap skate'... ... they're fast.

Erm, so, yeah. I think that's it's supposed to be. : /

Submitted 2004-02-23 12:51:31

flying squirrel writes:

I didn't watch the Olympics much.

I don't know if "Clap Mobile" has that much more marketing cachet, to be honest...

Submitted 2004-02-23 14:51:34

tinkerer writes:

Actually, if you look closely it says "CLAPMOBILE" on the back of the car. Which makes one wonder, if the poor fellow got it right on the car, how could he overlook the entire rest of his exhibit (where the word CRAP was prominent at several points)? And was he being obsessively secretive and refusing to show anyone his work before the event itself, or did no one have the heart to tell him that "crapmobile" would not bring images of speed skating to the minds of North Americans?

*giggle* Um, I guess I won't worry so much about nuclear bombs out of Korea. After all, if they can't tell a clap from a crap, well...

Submitted 2004-02-24 17:54:21

Dan writes:

Maybe someone should have told him -- IT'S A CLAP!

Zing!

Submitted 2004-02-24 20:20:20

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