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Different Wheels

Drive Time

Following yesterday’s rant about modern-day cars and their godless, snooping manufacturers, I want to say this.

One of these days, I’m going to need a new car — the Tiguan’s odometer is nudging 150,000 miles pretty hard, and every time I set off on any kind of trip, I’m apprehensive.

I have no idea how I’m going to afford it without draining our meager savings;  I may have to auction off almost all my guns to a certain group of gun-loving Readers I happen to know, just to defray some of the cost.

But just so everyone’s clear on the topic:  given all that’s appeared above, there is no way I will ever consider a “new” car — i.e. one made since the mid-1990s — but I’ll aim for one made without too much electronic equipment.  Here’s an example:

1993 Mercedes Benz 300CE ($38,000)

Less than 35,000 miles, that lovely 3.2-liter engine, and a Euro-spec stick shift… oh be still, my beating heart.

Of course, by the time I would actually be in a place to buy this magnificent car, it would be long sold (because duh);  but it should give you an idea of the direction I’m aiming.

There’s another option:  American cars.  But to find one of those that was made before 1995 and hasn’t been hot-rodded to hell and back?  That makes me really nervous.  (And I can’t go with a truck — New Wife is adamant on this.)  Plus, except for the 65 Mustangs, American cars of that era a generally fugly.

I will accept any and all thoughts on the topic.  Be kind, willya?

Ugliness

Architecture

As any fule kno, one of my frequent irritations is architecture that is foul and ugly (especially of the Bauhaus / Le Corbusier / Post-Modern ilk).  Reader Alex S. sends me an interesting take on the whole “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) syndrome;  and while it’s a long read, it’s definitely worth the time:

Western countries used to let landowners build almost anything anywhere. Now, strict rules freeze the character of most neighborhoods, banning change and densification. Why? One theory is that modern buildings tend to be ugly, leading residents to support rules that exclude them from their neighborhoods. If this is true, then designing beautiful buildings could lead to more development.

One could only hope.  Let me clear on this:  I’m absolutely not against redevelopment, especially in urban locations.  The more the merrier, say I, as long as the new buildings don’t look like factories, warehouses and concrete/glass building blocks.  In cities, by definition, where people are squashed together, there needs to be some kind of harmonious architecture — and not just for aesthetic reasons, either.  It’s actually jarring to find, in an area that has a certain architectural feel or style to it, a new construction that belongs to the Fuck You School.

I’m less concerned with suburban architecture, by the way, especially if the houses are not standing cheek-by-jowl with each other.  When it comes to personal property, I’m kinda-libertarian about the whole thing.  While I may cluck my tongue and (occasionally) shake my fist at some modern concrete block house standing on the same street as some gracious older homes (and there’s a lot of that in Dallas), the way I see it is that if someone’s just dropped a couple mil on a piece of land, he should be allowed to build whatever he likes on it.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.  Along the occasionally-posh Inwood Road in north Dallas, one generally sees what I refer to as the “Dallas Mansion” style:

But on that very same road, one occasionally runs into an ugly Modernist edifice:

…and while I think that the above is a piece of shit and doesn’t fit into the overall tone of the neighborhood, I just shrug and say “No accounting for taste, is there?” and continue on my way to the DFW Gun Range.

My tolerance, however, stops very short when I see something like this:

…when it’s perched in a neighborhood that looks like this:

At that point, I start calling for the C4, and an investigation of the bank accounts of the people sitting on the local planning commission.

Never mind “not in my back yard”:  it should be “not in anyone’s back yard”.

Random Totty

Gratuitous Chick Pics

Today I’m going to feature just two totties, for the sake of balance (so to speak).  First up is WNBA hottie Sophie Cunningham (and her two best features):

Of course, there are those among us who would prefer a larger superstructure, so to speak, and so here’s an old favorite on this back porch, Paige Spirinac (with her two outstanding features):

One should have a balanced perspective, I always say.

Little Brother

Drive Time, Surveillance Society

It’s one thing to have to deal with the Gummint snooping on your every move — literal, and figurative (i.e. your online activities) — but it’s another thing to having GlobalMegaCorp sniffing into your business as well.

Here’s how all this started:

Ruter, the [Norwegian] transit authority that runs public buses across Oslo and Akershus, parked two electric buses inside an isolated facility built into a mountain, the kind of shielded space normally used to keep radio signals from leaking in or out, and let its own security engineers take them apart. One bus came from Yutong, the Chinese manufacturer that has quietly become one of Europe’s largest electric bus suppliers. The other was a three-year-old unit from VDL, a Dutch manufacturer. Ruter chose that pairing deliberately: the two buses sit at opposite ends of how connected a modern transit vehicle can be.

And the findings?

Ruter’s own published findings are blunt about the VDL [Dutch] bus: it has no capability for over-the-air software updates at all. Every change to its systems requires a technician to physically connect a cable. That makes it a hassle to service. It also makes it nearly impossible to hijack remotely, which is exactly why Ruter’s engineers moved past it quickly.

The Yutong [Chinese] bus is the opposite. It receives software and diagnostic updates automatically, the same way a phone downloads a firmware patch overnight, except this particular phone weighs roughly 30,000 pounds and carries dozens of passengers through Oslo traffic. That connection routes through a Romanian SIM card, which gives Yutong direct digital access to the bus’s battery and power management systems. Ruter’s engineers concluded that, in theory, this access could be used to stop the bus or render it inoperable, not through some elaborate hack, but simply because the manufacturer already has a standing door into those systems for legitimate diagnostic and update purposes.

Wile all this is alarming, it’s not really surprising.  We’ve known for ages that the godless ChiCommies have their dirty little ears glued to just about every damn piece of electronic equipment our friends (!) in Silicon Valley have outsourced to their manufacture.

So now we get to the part that makes me start fixing a lunch bucket, scoping out high buildings and cleaning the Mauser.

None of what Ruter found is exotic. It’s the standard architecture of any modern connected vehicle, and American drivers have been living with a version of it for nearly two decades. General Motors’ OnStar system can, at the company’s discretion, send a cellular command to a stolen vehicle that blocks the ignition from restarting once it’s parked, or gradually slows a moving vehicle so police can recover it safely. That is functionally the same category of access Ruter found in the Yutong bus: a persistent, manufacturer-controlled cellular link with authority over propulsion-adjacent systems, built into the vehicle before it ever reaches a customer’s driveway.

So Big Auto are a bunch of snooping smegma-eaters.  We know that, too.

The distinction that actually matters here isn’t whether a manufacturer can reach into a vehicle remotely. Almost every connected car sold today allows that, by design, for updates, diagnostics, and theft recovery. What matters is who holds the authority to use that access, under what legal process, and how many vehicles go dark at once if that access is ever misused, subpoenaed, or compromised.

A single stolen sedan getting slowed to a stop by its own manufacturer is a feature working as intended. An entire transit authority’s bus fleet answering to a remote command from a foreign supplier’s server is a different order of risk entirely, which is exactly why Ruter escalated this to Norway’s national government instead of treating it as an IT ticket.

Now comes the part that has me checking Ye Olde Ammoe Locquer for 8x57mm:

Chinese abuse of this little backdoor activity [sic] is bad, but in the bigger picture, it can be addressed with a carefully-aimed chunk or two of explosive material on the Three Gorges Dam.

What worries me more is that this little pipeline into our cars can also be — and is — at the beck and call of the auto manufacturers, who are only too ready to “share” that data with, say, the insurance industry (hello, fresh revenue stream), and if pressed just a little, with our own Gummint ghouls who infest the alphabet agencies (DHS, NSA, FBI, just to name the three biggest dicks aimed at out collective rectums).

I need to get to the range.  So if you’ll excuse me…

 

When It Absolutely, Positively

Gratuitous Gun Pics, Hunting, The Gun Thing

…has to work every time it’s used, and not break, not ever.

I speak here of the dangerous game rifle — that final guarantee that the hunter won’t turn into his prey’s prey.

Now before I go any further, I need to back up a little. In the recent past, I’ve been somewhat scornful of “luxury brands” — you know what I mean:  $100,000 watches, $2million Ferraris, and, in our gunny world, $200,000 (secondhand) Purdey shotguns… the list goes on and on.

Then you get a gun manufacturer who creates a piece that is admittedly expensive – horrendously expensive — but that expense is somewhat mitigated by the fact that what their product promises is actual infallibility.  I speak here of J. Rigby’s “Rising Bite” double rifle, which is generally available only in super-manly chamberings like .416 Rigby Magnum, .470 NE (Nitro Express) and still larger diameters.  (Excuse me, I need to go and pop an ibuprofen tab because my shoulder is starting to ache, just by thinking of these massive projectiles.)

Here’s what it looks like:

And here’s the “Rising Bite” itself:

Here’s an explanation of how it works, and why it’s necessary.

Here’s one in .470 NE that recently sold for about $35,000:

Note the Rising Bite:

Excuse me… .470 Nitro?  I need another ibuprofen.

I should also point out that any proper double rifle is expensive (see this Karl Ferlach beauty here).

There is one last thing to be said, however.

While I yield to no man in my admiration for Rigby’s guns, I should point out that while their double rifles may well be worth the cost of ownership, I don’t think that’s necessarily true of their bolt-action rifles.  Why?

Because Rigby’s bolt actions are built on that of the venerable Mauser 98 (link in pic):

It’s lovely, but honestly:  at $25,000 secondhand?  You’re paying for the brand.  Me, I’d rather get a brand-new Mauser 98 for just over half the price (link ditto):

Same action, same durability and reliability… absent the desire to impress your hunting buddies when you uncase it at the hunting camp, it’s not really even a question.  (And yeah, I’m a sucker for just about any Mauser over some fancy English trinket;  go ahead and sue my ancient Boer ass.)

Honestly, no experienced PH is going to curl his lip when you take that bad boy out of the case to sight it in.  (Incidentally,”sighting in” at a hunting camp is not only about sighting in your rifle to check that it hasn’t been damaged in transit, it’s also to reassure the PH that you know what the hell you’re doing.)

And finally:  if anyone is thinking of doing an African safari anytime soon, let me know.  I do have some small knowledge of the topic in question, but by now that knowledge is severely out of date (although I do know a couple of good Seffrican hunting outfitters.).  Rather let me get the latest scoop from Mr. Free Market and Doc Russia, who are very experienced at the thing.  Also, you may want to be on good terms with your bank manager… the cost of a decent rifle is not the greatest expense you’ll incur.

Namibia

Africa, History, Travels

I already knew most of this story, and I used it as a basis for my (still-unfinished!) novel, Skeleton Coast.  Take an hour out of your busy life, and find out all about the most savage land in the world.  I’ve been there many times, sometimes with the South African Army, a few times on business and as a tourist, and only once to hunt.  So I’ve really only brushed on it, but it still continues to leave a mark in my memory.

It’s an absorbing show, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.  Unlike several of the videos on that channel, it’s light on commentary and long on observation.  And historically, it’s quite accurate.

Yer welcome.