Showing posts with label informative. Show all posts
Showing posts with label informative. Show all posts

Jalopnik changes format, traffic and comments take a nosedive, down 24% in 3 months according to one source, 75% in another

Above stat graph from http://karakullake.blogspot.com/2011/03/jalopniks-new-format-design.html but looking at Alexa, http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/jalopnik.com pageviews are down 25% in the last 3 months.

Someone named Matt, who doesn't have an email on his blogger profile (so responding directly is not possible) and doesn't indicate if he has any affiliation with Jalopnik, left the follwing comment on this post

As it should be clear, sitemeter was pulled from the sites because it wasn't functioning. This has been widely discussed and explained. A simple look at individual post pageviews on the site would indicate this is so. Thanks for your concern, though.

Ok, you refer to plural number of places sitemeter was pulled from, Why?

Further, what correlation is there that Alexa (2nd source, you know, responsible journalism standard practive) also has Jalopnik's pageviews down 25%, and I link to their site page about 3 inches about this sentance, not hard to see what they have to say.

Oh, I'm not concerned, I'm reporting this fact as news, not concern. My stats are steadily growing like mad, and I'm guessing it's for many reasons, and only one of them is that Jalopnik has lost viewers that like my simple, easy, with no advertising format instead. Huh.

Macintosh, Granny, and Red Delicious.

How ya like them apples?

The US Interior Secretary and Director of the BLM toured the Imperial Sand Dunes at Glamis

story here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sand-dunes-20110221,0,4494274.story but in a nutshell they came to relate that motorized recreation fits into the Obama administration's "America's Great Outdoors " conservation initiative rolled out last week that is heavy on land preservation.
great photo by Allen Schaben, shows the secretary in a ranger's sand rail that got stuck when they went to go over a steep dune... nice new rail huh?

1967 Rebel station wagon regional models

The Mariner (600 units) in Barbados blue with panels trim of simulated bleached teakwood planking accented by narrow black horizontal stripes and a "nautical anchor" medallion. The interior featured anchors and stars decorating dark blue suede bolster panels of the seats, which also had white piping and broad horizontal pleated inserts of medium blue antelope grain vinyl and was sold along the coastal regions of the United States.
Above, the Mariner
Below the Westerner

The Westerner (500 units) in Frost White with plankwood trim side inserts and a "Pony Express" medallion. The interior featured stallion brown vinyl that simulated "richly tooled" leather on the seats and door panels in combination with white antelope grained vinyl and was available west of the Mississippi River.


The Briarcliff (400 units) in Matador Red with simulated black camera grain side panels and "regal" medallions, as well as its own black "antelope grain" vinyl interior. The Briarwood was marketed in major markets in the east and south.

Designed to spur interest in all of AMC's products and to generate increased sales for the company, the special wagons were limited for sale to geographical areas.

Info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_Rebel learned about it and got photos from
http://svammelsurium.blogg.se/2010/may/mariner-westener-briarcliff-rambler.html

If you have a car shipped, I recommend inspecting the cargo container before they lock it closed and send it off

If you look closely, you'll the see above photo has 2 pieces of lumbar stacked on top of each other , both sides of the container, from the front to the back. Doesn't look safe to me.
Photos from http://svammelsurium.blogg.se/ becuase if I recall correctly, that blogger works at a recieving location where collector cars come into Sweden

Marten (http://svammelsurium.blogg.se/) tells me
Since the customs about a year ago raised their costs excessively for goods from the US, people shipped cars via the Netherlands and paid only 6% fees, but now they raised the fees to 20%, so what is done now is to take the cars to France which has a regular fee of ony 5% on the custom value. The reason for taking a midway landing is that when the car is brought here its suddenly a European car, and then taken into Sweden with no charges at all!

You have less than a second to see the biker... Click on the image to see the full size first

Too late, next time slow down and be careful, it's the only way to see better... Ducati advertising found on http://autoadvert.tumblr.com/

Rental car fuel charges as of last week, before gas prices jumped

National...........$5.01 a gallon
Avis..................$7.99
Hertz................$8.29

This is what you will be charged if they have to top off the tank, if you opt not to prepay them, and don't fill the car before returning it.

I've just added a translator widget, adapted from the brilliant Dicasblogger.com.br translator widget

I adapted the code from Dicasblogger.bz to the following, but since they were are writing their blog in Brazil, they speak Portuguese, and never wrote a code for translating anything to Portuguese, nor did they use a flag of Brazil, so I need one of those also, I can't adapt any code to translate from English to Portuguese... can anyone write the code to do that?
Here is one source code to show an example of what it takes, But it's not complete or all that would be displayed would be the flag, Google-Translate-English to Italian and none of the code text. So, clicking on the flag will work for a translator... but to see and example of the source code behind I'm going to have to delete a little bit of it

!--– Add English to Italian –-- a
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cit&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;"
title="Google-Translate-English to Italian" img style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px solid; BORDER-LEFT: 0px solid; WIDTH: 32px; HEIGHT: 32px; BORDER-TOP: 0px solid; CURSOR: pointer; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px solid" title="Google-Translate-English to Italian" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cit&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" alt="Google-Translate-English to Italian" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_mcq01yDJ2uY/Sdke2xCmrPI/AAAAAAAAAj0/Jv14yyDo1i4/Italy.png" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" /


I deleted all the <> >< stuff so you can read it.

What I did adapting the code from Portuguese to English as the origin language seems to have worked, if you find it didn't, I'm sorry. I can't do anymore with it, coding is beyond me.

Dean Jeffries, pinstriper and custom car bulder, Oakland Roadster Show winner


I was just reading an article about Dean and the Mantaray, and learned that he travelled to Indy for the 500, and on year, pinstriped 2/3rds of the race cars

James Dean was one of his early customers, and Jeffries painted "Little Bastard" on the Porsche 550 Spyder that Dean owned.

Agajanian took Jeffries to the 1952 Indy 500, Mobil Oil, noticing his unusual painting and pin striping style, hired him in the following years to paint any of the Indy race cars. It was free to the teams and Mobil got their logo somewhere on the car. Jeffries would paint and pin stripe the cars and helmets of race car drivers like Jim Rathmann, Parnelli Jones, and A. J. Foyt, and become Foyt's paint and body man.

After that, in 1962, he worked for famous race car designer and builder Carroll Shelby on the Cobra.

Dean's show car, Mantaray, first appeared at the 1964 Oakland Roadster Show where it won the Tournament of Fame First Prize. The smallblock Ford engine & 4-speed trans came directly from Shelby as partial payment for work Jeffries had done and to this day that Cobra engine has just a few miles on it.

For more about Dean Jeffries, mostly photos of his pinstriping, Krazy Shirts, and his magazine advertisements: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search/label/Dean%20Jeffries

California Smog test... not much interested in tailpipe emissions

If you have had a jump start, replaced your battery, or removed your battery to replace engine parts like I did yesterday, your newer model vehicles with computers will have lost some memory that the smopg test requires as so important, you fail the smog test

What the hell is so essential about the computer memory of my Grand Am? How much time I've spent over the speed limit? How much I've spun the tires to the extent the computer kicks in the idiot light for "Loss of traction" ?

The smog test guy tells me that it's the history of the computer tuning the fuel and exhaust parts that can vary to keep the emissions clean.

I told him that if the emission out the muffler is clean it is good enough for me. I have to come back once I've added a lot of miles to the history of the computer, so the state of California can see that my car doesn't have to work too much to keep the emissions in check

Radiator hoses

They seem to fail between 75,000 and 100,000 miles, and about 10 years..

If you are looking to visit car museums in the USA, here is a list not to miss

here is a list of the top 10 in the world: http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/top-10/top-10-automobile-museums.html?articleid=122959 which completely agrees with http://smashingusa.com/12-definitely-worth-a-detour-car-museums-of-america/ and they agree that the Henry Ford, the National Corvette, and the Petersen are not to be missed and they suprised me with the Studebaker and the Natl. Auto museum in Reno (formerly the Harrah).

Some others: the Gilmore in Michigan (doesn't open til May http://www.gilmorecarmuseum.org/ )
and if you get into Michigan see the Motorsports Hall of Fame http://www.mshf.com/ , and the Detroit Historic Museum's collection
the AACA in Hershey Pennsylvania http://www.aacamuseum.org/ ,
and if you got to Penn stop by Allentown and see http://www.americaonwheels.org/
you might try the Swigart in Huntingdon, PA http://www.swigartmuseum.com/index.html
and the Punta Gorda muscle car in Florida, the Indianapolis Speedway museum, and a must is Speedy Bill's!

The Lane museum is quirky and full of micro cars, it's in Nashville, and the Crawford in Cleveland are both in this top 10 list http://www.journeyetc.com/travel-guide/top-10-best-automobile-museums-to-visit-in-the-us/ While in the neighborhood of Illinois / Ohio, see the Packard in Dayton Ohio http://www.wrsol.com/usatravelguide/2009/12/bestcarmuseums-americaspackardmuseum/ .. ..

In DeSoto Kansas is Grandpa's Garage & Body Shop
http://www.classicaldrives.com/50226711/in_a_town_called_desoto_grandpas_garage_features_old_fords.php

Ya gotta see Speedy Bill's! It's the museum of American Speed in Lincoln Nebraska http://www.museumofamericanspeed.com/default.dlp

In Pheonix Arizona is the Penske Auto museum: http://www.automotto.org/entry/jaunt-across-the-car-museums-of-america/

Here in So Cal, which you'll probably not consider during the trip, but sometime afterward... I still haven't gotten to these myself: The Nethercutt, Justice Brothers, Blackhawk, and you ought to see Galpin Ford's display

Here's a list of museums by state: http://www.team.net/www/museums/us.html but it's 5 years old, and might not be 100% accurate anymore

Here is a link to a list of lots of US auto museums http://www.digital-librarian.com/car_museums.html

Mullins museum info, it's not open often, and you must buy tickets in advance

805.385.5400

Info@mullinautomotivemuseum.com

VISITING HOURS
Visiting hours are 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM on days the museum is scheduled to be open.

DATES
The Museum will be open on the following dates:

Saturday, February 12, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011

Tickets must be purchased in advance.
http://www.mullinautomotivemuseum.com/tickets--information.html
Tickets are not refundable and cannot be exchanged.
Third-party convenience charges will apply.

TICKETS PRICES

Adults $10
Seniors (62+) $7
Children (5-12) $5
Children under 5 FREE

For more about the Mullin Museum: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/10/peter-mullin-auto-museum-not-open-yet.html and
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/08/mullin-museum-is-finally-open-but-only.html

What's the difference between the old gullwing Mercedes Benz and the new SLS AMG doors?

Problem:
The engineers were are not allowed to make gull wing doors like they did in the 50's... it's a kinder-softer-gentler time in the world of cars, and if a driver flipped a new gullwing on the roof, they wouldn't be able to get out.

Solution:
The SLS AMG has exploding bolts at the door hinges.

Source: Automobile Magazine April 2010 issue, Ezra Dyer article page 30

What's the difference between the old gullwing Mercedes Benz and the new SLS AMG doors?

Problem:
The engineers were are not allowed to make gull wing doors like they did in the 50's... it's a kinder-softer-gentler time in the world of cars, and if a driver flipped a new gullwing on the roof, they wouldn't be able to get out.

Solution:
The SLS AMG has exploding bolts at the door hinges.

Source: Automobile Magazine April 2010 issue, Ezra Dyer article page 30