I just thought to follow up on this 2007 story about DayJet, a high-flying air taxi service that planned to operate tiny, three-passenger Eclipse 500 jets. The story doesn’t deviate from economic trends: DayJet ceased operations in September 2008, and the aircraft manufacturer entered Chapter 7 in February 2009.

The Air Taxi Association says their operators save big money over scheduled airline service, but finding the price of that service can be hard.

Aside from DayJet’s inventory of planes, the company has a lot of transportation research and service algorithms that may stand as assets. The research includes a “Sim City on steroids” that models “the entire U.S. transportation system. They’ve mapped travel patterns into 10-square-mile blocks, complete with income levels, demographics, historical driving patterns, airport drive times, and airline schedules and fares.” Further, they’ve developed an algorithm that supposedly could manage the resource allocation issues and estimate the cost for passengers trying to hail such a taxi.

I spied this drool-worthy scooter and sidecar combo on Scooter Sidecars.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Eu-Jin Ooi’s picture of rail trucks piled up after a derailment isn’t nearly as scary as this derailment found at Dee’s Inbox:

Can anybody name that incident? (The top one is BNSF, Barstow CA, April 2008. What’s the bottom one?)

Residents of Mumbai (Bombay) were wondering who was responsible for removing an abandoned 737 in their Chembur neighborhood. Then, as quickly and mysteriously as it appeared, it vanished. The Times of India says the plane arrived by truck, but the driver took a wrong turn and couldn’t maneuver the 75 foot long hulk out.

Wingless planes and beached whales aren’t so dissimilar. The Oregon Highway Department knows how to take care of the latter (though, it turns out that whales are known to spontaneously self destruct).

Presidential Limos are armored, yes, but Gregg Merksamer reveals that George W. Bush’s limos sport five-inch thick glass, more than twice as thick as in Clinton’s limo. Merksamer should know, he wrote the book on so-called “professional cars”. He says half an inch is enough to stop a .44 magnum at point blank range, and BMW’s X5 “Security” model features only a little more than that. So what’s it mean when a person needs ten times that amount?

I so want one of these sweet Draganflyer X6 helicopters. The two pound powerhouse can carry up to one pound of camera equipment, carrying it smooth enough to get decent video and stills.

More videos are at the Dragonfly website, including one which supposedly demonstrates that it’s quiet enough for wildlife photo work (scroll down and look for “hawk”). Who knows how much it costs, but I requested a quote. Anybody want to guess the price?

Extra: MIT’s take on helicopter surveillance.

(Via)

Last weekend, while I was putting an iPod interface into my Scion I did the same thing for my 2002 Honda Civic. Using Ben Johnson’s story as a guide, I bought a PIE HON98-AUX interface and dove in.

Aside from tools (screwdrivers and 8 and 10mm sockets), you’ll need:

• The interface adapter
• Audio wiring — I used a 6′ RCA to 1/8th inch cable from Radio Shack
• Power — I used a Belkin car charger plugged into this 12v extension cord I picked up from Radio Shack

I also recommend a sufficient quantity of good beer or other beverage. I used raspberry wheat for this project.

As I noted in my previous post, most people recommend unhooking the battery to guard against short circuits while doing this sort of thing. For my part, I usually skip that and let a fuse automatically disconnect things when it blows. Either way, though, you’d do well to find your factory radio’s 5 digit security code, as if the power gets disconnected, it won’t work again without it.

Underneath the dashboard is a panel with the car’s only power socket. The panel can be removed with some careful-but-stern pulling around the edges. Five friction clips (two on each side, one on the top center) hold it in place, but by working a flathead screwdriver around the sides I was able to pull it off.

Behind the panel are the screws that hold the dashboard console assembly in place.

With those two screws removed, I was able to push the assembly from behind and ease it out of the dashboard cavity.

Again, however, I had to fight these friction clips that held the top and sides of the assembly in place.

Once the assembly was out, I could plug in the interface adapter into the CD changer port.

I routed the interface adapter’s cable bundle behind the stereo and down to the accessory power panel. There’s enough space behind there for the adapter to sit, but first I wanted to test it.

Unlike the Toyota adapter, the Honda adapter has a separate ground wire. Fortunately, there’s another ground wire screwed in down there behind the 12v jack too.

To power my iPhone, I cut the plug end off the 12v extension cord and tapped it in to the wires leading to the existing 12v socket.

The inline taps are hugely useful.

I fished the cable for both the extension socket and the audio along the center console, hidden behind the plastic on the passenger side. The socket end of the extension emerges from the console at a convenient spot along with the audio cable. My old Belkin car charger plugs in there, the audio cable plugs into the base of it, and the dock-connector cable plugs in to my iPhone. The only thing I have to futz with is the dock connector cable, everything else is out of sight.

People have asked me why I chose to use the low-tech PIE adapter, instead of a smarter one that would allow me to control the iPod from the factory stereo. Up to the time I got my iPhone, I was sure that that was what I wanted, but the message I get every time I plug an old accessory into the dock connector is enough to make me cautious about building infrastructure around the interface. I don’t know what music device I’ll use next, but I would rather not have to take apart my car again to plug it in.

In my next post on this topic, I’ll explain how I replaced the rear speakers in this car.

Based on this story about an iPod interface install I purchased a PIE TOY03-AUX aux input adapter so I could finally listen to my iPhone without using the lousy FM transmitter. Sure, I coulda bought a new car, as the manufacturers seem to have finally come to their senses and started including such inputs, but I refuse to buy another car until I can have one that gets well over 40MPG.

The parts:

Thing is, buying all the parts is the easy part.

The dashboard:

Remove all three knobs and these two screws:

Pull the panel out from the bottom. As the hooks at the top of the panel are released, the panel should move freely:

Be careful of the wires to the A/C, defrost, and hazards. Thinking of electrics, most people recommend unhooking the battery to guard against short circuits while doing this sort of thing. For my part, I usually skip that and let a fuse automatically disconnect things when it blows.

Once the panel is clear, remove the four screws that hold the radio in place (two each side):

With the radio out, the interface adapter plugs in easily. There’s lots of room behind the dash to hide the box, and lots of open space to route the audio cable through.

But why spend so much time on this and still plug the iPhone into the dash’s 12V accessory socket? I wired the extension cable into the existing power. Getting at the wires to the power socket requires removing another panel. Easy enough, but it looks an awful mess:

With the audio cable and the new power jack, I simply plugged in an old Belkin car charger, plugged the audio cable 1/8th inch end into that, and now all I have to do is connect the dock connector to listen to my iPod in the car.

Total time for the job? If you don’t include having to run out for a new fuse, then it’s under an hour.

Who knew FedEx and UPS planes crashed so often? (Blame the intronetz for making this too easy to discover.)

• UPS plane catches on fire, lands in Philadelphia (2006). Apparently the source of the fire remains a mystery, as with a few other UPS fires.
• FedEx planes have crashed and burned in Tallahassee (2002) and Memphis (2006). In 1994 a fired FedEx pilot attempted to murder flight crew with hammer and hijack the plane. Amazingly, they landed safely.
• A DHL plane struck a passenger plane in mid-air. Both planes were lost in the tragedy, though some think the passenger liner was shot down. Investigators blamed the air traffic controller, a Russian man killed the controller and is now in prison for the act.
• Small planes are problematic too. Contract flyers have crashed into the sea, and onto houses. Some even carry vials of herpes and influenza virii for research, and some apparently get struck in mid air by UFOs.

Photographer farflungphotos describes:

All the stations in Moscow’s metro are completely different from one another. Some of them are so opulent, with grand marble halls and chandeliers, all hidden away underground. People seemed to be using them as places just to hang out and meet up with friends. The trains were really frequent too, practically on each others tails. You never have to wait more than a few minutes for one to come along.

I saw this bike here, here, and here on Flickr, but nobody said what it was or where I could learn more. Some googling revealed it was Eric Staller’s ConferenceBike, first sold by Hemmacher Schlemmer. One person steers while all seven riders peddle, and it looks like a lot of fun if you’ve got a spare $13,000.

The eight foot long bike is six feet wide and weighs about 400 pounds. President Jimmy Carter seems to enjoy it, reseller WorkCycles pictures it with some ridiculously happy riders, and rental operator Paul Selke of Cycle Seven says it will germinate the rebirth of American downtowns. From the 1950s themed video you’d think it’s how June and Ward Cleaver met.

For those just looking for weird or different bicycles, take a look at the sideways bike, WorkCycles (common in Europe, not America), this page of specialty bikes, and this feature on moving about on one, two, or three wheels.

Story: Timbuk2 develops a new line of messenger bags that features fabric made of recycled material (engineered by RootPhi). Some of the fabric contains a symbol that Target lawyers say is their logo. Target lawyers cease and desist Timbuk2.

Thing is, the trademarked Target logo is a roundel, commonly used around the world (easily recognized in British aircraft of WWII). The particular design Target has chosen appears to be a copy of Peru’s official insignia.

Trademark law isn’t my thing, but I wonder if the roundel is trademarkable. “Most jurisdictions totally exclude certain types of terms and symbols from registration as trademarks, including the emblems, insignia and flags of nations….”

copyfight, trademark, Target, roundel, symbols, Timbuk2, cease and desist

Will found this on the side of the road, and after he told me about it I begged him to show me.

It’s tiny, rusty, and a little older than I expected. Like a very, very small VW Bus, it has a rear-mounted engine. I think it’s a Subaru Sambar, but that’s mostly based on the details I gleaned from the Subaru 360 article, which reveals that engine was probably air cooled, displacing 330 CCs, and producing under 40 HP.

US imports began in the mid-60s, but by 1969 Consumer Reports magazine branded the automobile “Not Acceptable” because of safety concerns and lack of power.

To hell with safety and power, I love this little thing. I want a small, fuel efficient car like this.

subaru sambar, van, car, small, k car, kei car, subaru, sambar, little

I probably spend too much time considering competition and change management, but just as I figured I was done with it for the week, a comment from Kathryn Greenhill regarding Model Ts got me going again.

Just like railroads, those “any color as long as it’s black” Model Ts looked like freedom, until General Motors showed the world they could get their cars in color and with curves. Every car came with four wheels and an engine, and they’d drive you down the block and around town, but the moldy Model T suddenly looked pretty old next to a sleek green Chevrolet.

By the end of 1919, Ford was producing 50 percent of all cars in the United States, and by 1920 half of all cars in the country were Model Ts. #

By the mid-1920s, sales of the Model T began to decline due to rising competition. Other auto makers offered payment plans through which consumers could buy their cars, which usually included more modern mechanical features and styling not available with the Model T. Despite urgings from Edsel, Henry steadfastly refused to incorporate new features into the Model T or to form a customer credit plan.

After becoming president of Ford, Edsel long advocated the introduction of a more modern automobile to replace the Model T, but was repeatedly overruled by his father. Flagging sales and dwindling market share for the company, however, finally made introduction of a new model inevitable. #

By 1926, flagging sales of the Model T finally convinced Henry to make a new model car. The result is the Edsel-designed Model A, which sold 4 million units from 1927-31. #

But that’s all old news. This is today:

1999: Bill Ford becomes Chairman of the Board. #

Bill Ford is known to be a conscientious environmentalist. In 2000, he announced that the Company would achieve a 25% improvement in fuel efficiency in the company’s light truck fleet, including SUVs, by mid-decade. That commitment proved to be impractical, given consumer preference for heavy towing capacity, and large powerful engines in their trucks. The company then announced in 2003 that competitive market conditions and technological and cost challenges would prevent it from achieving the goal. Ford also terminated its ongoing electric vehicle program as impractical and unaffordable from a profitable business standpoint. #

September 2003: The price of crude oil is under $25 a barrel; August 11, 2005: $60 a barrel; July 13, 2006: a record price of $78.40 per barrel. In the United States, gasoline prices reached an all-time high during the first week of September 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The average retail price was nearly $3.04 per US gallon. #

2006: Bill Ford steps down as CEO. Ford mortgages all assets to raise $23.4 billion cash in secured credit lines, in order to finance product development during restructuring through 2009. #

These may appear contradictory, at one moment Ford is refusing the chase the market while it’s once mighty Model T falls, and in another the company gives up fuel efficient cars to chase the SUV market and suffers. But in both you’ll find Ford’s failure to innovate at the core.

A story, possibly apocryphal (i.e. I can’t find the source), tells of electronics manufacturers asking customers what features they wanted in their home video equipment. “VCRs that rewind faster,” they cried. Instead they got DVDs that didn’t need rewinding. Henry Ford responded to apparent customer demands for more, cheaper Model Ts, but customers quickly moved elsewhere when other manufacturers offered variety and style.

change management, innovation, henry ford, edsel ford, bill ford, model t, markets, lessons

Office pranks are a bit of a thing here. Well, at least in IT. Last year Matt took charge and put together a quartet of pranks that got the attention of the London Daily Mirror.

This video is from a May 2002 prank that put a golf cart with fuzzy dice and bobble headed Jesus in Cliffy’s office along with a Vote Bush sign and other things. He was mad, to be sure. Zach, Matt, Jon, and Al did all the heavy lifting, I simply offered (not like I had a choice) my golf cart to the cause (Zach would quickly point out that I’d basically abandoned it at his house).

Colophon: Why am I publishing this video only now? Because the new iMovie 08 rocks. Really. The source material was shot on my old Sony Clie, but until now I didn’t really have tools that would make editing it down easy enough to be worth the effort (it’s still five minutes, I know).

office, prank, cliffy, cliff pearson, redneck, golf cart, office prank, video, casual friday

A hurricane, high crosswinds at the landing site, a nitrogen leak, and two damaged tiles. Watch the shuttle land live on NASA TV.

Space Shuttle, NASA TV, STS-118, space shuttle Endeavour, Endeavour, NASA, landing, manned spaceflight

About 597,000 vehicular bridges nationwide, and 73,764 are “structurally deficient.”

Sources: 2006 National Bridge Inventory compiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation, American Society of Civil Engineers‘ Infrastructure Report Card, and Gannett.

transportation, infrastructure, bridges, structurally deficient, engineers

In response to my previous kvetching about the scarcity of cheap fuel efficient cars, JWK commented that his 2001 Golf TDI gets 48 MPG (it’s rated for 44). Meanwhile, TreeHugger pointed out that Volkswagen’s Polo BlueMotion gets 62 MPG (Volkswagen UK claims the current Polo hatchback gets up to 72 MPG in diesel (I assume that’s about 60 MPG in US measures), and TreeHugger points out the 157 mpg Loremo AG).

Sadly, the Polo has never been sold in the US (and there’s no sign that VW plans to bring it here), and looking around the Volkswagen US website leaves a reader wondering if VW ever did sell diesel cars in the US. In fact most every diesel passenger car has been taken off the US market (compare 2003) because manufacturers are having trouble meeting LEV II regulations.

The irony here is that while the diesel Polo consumes significantly less fuel and emits correspondingly less CO2, it still has greater NOx and particulate matter emissions than a similar gasoline-powered model. L. David Peters thinks keeping diesel passenger cars off our highways is foolish when the potential for reduced greenhouse gas emissions is so great (easy to say, I suppose, when you don’t live with California’s smog (downtown, highways, hills, up high, on the desktop, and creeping into the wilderness)).

Manufacturers are developing newer, cleaner diesels that should be released soon. The Smart Fortwo I mentioned previously appears to actually be a diesel after all (see 2005 review that claims it gets 48 MPG) and it should be available in early 2008.

I’m contemplating signing up for the Smart reservation program, as the car is clearly a leader in all the features that I named the other day, but that 157 MPG Loremo would be a winner for me if it ever gets off the drafting table and into production.

diesel, Volkswagen, TDi, Smart Fortwo, LEV II, emissions, fuel economy, mileage

I’m looking for a new car, but I’m finding that the market for cheap and fuel efficient cars is no better now than it was in 2005.

I drive about 140 miles round trip to work (all highway), so I’m looking for the best available highway fuel economy. I can drive a standard, but Sandee can’t, so we’ll need automatic. I like small cars, but no so much that I want to pay a lot for one. The only luxury items I’m hoping for are a decent stereo with some form of iPod integration (a line-in will work), and cruise control (improves fuel economy, helps me avoid getting tickets). I’m avoiding hybrids because I’m concerned about what happens when the batteries need to be replaced (and disposed of) and because the batteries do little to improve highway mileage.

The Toyota Yaris meets most of my requirements (the liftback isn’t available with cruise control), and the 40 MPG sticker on the 2007 model looks good compared to other available cars. It also helps that it’s cheap.

The Honda Fit is along similar lines, and the sport version has cruise control, but the fuel economy drops to 37 MPG (lower, in fact, than the Civic) and it’s a bit pricier (not much more, but the idea of paying more for less efficiency kills me).

The Mini scores 37 MPG. Cruise control and dozens of other features are options, and it’s available in so many cute colors, but it also demands a premium price.

The Smart Fortwo (a Daimler/Mercedes Benz brand) is coming to the US early next year (previously imported by Zap). The version Americanized by Zap was rated for 40 MPG, and the Smart site claims “the vehicle is designed to achieve 40 plus mpg under normal driving conditions and current standards.” We’ll have to wait to get the finalized details, but Daimler is claiming it’ll cost less than $12,000 for the base model. (All mileage ratings above were for highway/automatic.)

There are other cars, but, but the EPA’s list of the most efficient cars is pretty slim. The worst realization from that list, however, is that there’s really no super efficient, cheap economy box that we can point at any more (even considering the new EPA formula). In 1995 Honda offered a 50 MPG Civic hatchback and a 1990 Geo Metro scored 51 highway MPG (Pete comments that his 93 Metro is still getting 50 MPG).

Sure our cars are generally getting bigger and heavier, but what else is at work? Why don’t we see those little cheap cars anymore? (It’s not like they’re not making them in Japan.)

cars, car, fuel efficient, econo box, cheap, fuel economy, Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris

Kent Wien posted this photo of the tail of a Boeing 757 showing what looks like the exhaust end of a turbine.

I had to ask what it was all about, and Kent explained:

Ahh, very good question! There actually IS an engine back there. It’s the APU (auxiliary power unit) and it’s what keeps the airplane cool on the ground without being plugged into the gate. It also provides electrical power and high pressure air that starts the engines after we push back from the gate.

This engine is the same as the one found on the Jetstream 31 commuter airplane, but without the prop.

aircraft, aviation, boeing 757, tail, apu, auxiliary power unit, answer

Yes, gas prices are high, and gas doesn’t grow on trees (well, in geologic time it does), but that doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to run on cars on corn, even if it does grow on, um, trees (yes, alright, cornstalks).

I mean, people talk about photovoltaics being inefficient, but wow, think of how much energy it takes to turn a seed into corn, then turn that corn into ethanol and truck it to a gas station.

It might not be quite so ridiculous if our agricultural system wasn’t so dependent on petroleum (and its derivatives) for fuel, fertilizers, and pest control. But it is ridiculous, and horribly ironic.

That is, our practice of converting farmland to suburbs has reduced our capacity to grow ethanol, so the SUV-driving fool who has to commute from the suburbs is not only consuming obscene amounts of fuel, but has participated in one of the trends that makes ethanol un-viable as a solution to the fuel crisis his SUV-driving, suburban ways created.

And if it ended there it might be laughable in a schandefreude kind of way, but it doesn’t. Ethanol consumption competes with food production, putting a double squeeze on us in the supermarket.

Eh, I’m obviously worked up. Sunita Narain said it better:

Now that the reality of climate change has been accepted even by its strongest sceptics, there is a rush to find answers. The latest buzz is to substitute the use of greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels with biofuels—fuel processed from plants. Unfortunately, the way we are going about implementing this “good” idea could mean we are headed from the frying pan to the fire.

There are two kinds of biofuel: ethanol, processed from sugarcane or corn, and biodiesel, made from biomass. Climate-savvy Europe gave the first push to biofuel, mandating they should contribute 6 per cent of fuels used in vehicles by 2010 and 10 per cent by 2020. The bulk of biodiesel comes from domestically grown rapeseed. But to meet its growing needs, it is looking at importing soyabean-based fuel from Brazil and Argentina, and palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia.

us president George Bush has this year called on his country to produce 132 billion litres of biofuel by 2017, to cut dependence on foreign fuel. The US’s favourite biofuel is ethanol, which it produces from corn starch. Brazil, the world’s largest ethanol producer, mostly uses sugarcane. It is estimated that ethanol plants will burn up to half of the ’s domestic corn supplies in the coming few years. In addition, its biofuel industry is looking to make fuel out of soya and other crops to feed the automobile industry’s growing hunger.

Already, the repercussions of this switch are beginning to show. Late last year, Mexico saw its tortilla wars, as people found the price of their staple—corn—had doubled. The hike was a result of the crop’s new market as a source of vehicle fuel and the control over the crop and its uses by corporate USA. In this case, one company, Archer Daniels Midlands, has dominant interests in the corn and wheat market and is the largest ethanol processor in the region. In addition, it has a financial stake in a Mexican company that makes tortillas and refines wheat. In other words, the company benefits when corn price increases and consumers switch to wheat. Or when the switch takes place from food to fuel, they benefit. Similarly, Cargill, the agribusiness multinational, is now the big name in the biofuel market. In this scenario, prices of other food commodities—wheat, soya, palm oil—are rising as well, in turn, impacting the poorest consumers globally. The projections are that food prices will increase between 20-40 per cent in the next 10 years or so because of this switchover.

The problem is compounded by the fact that this “switch” will do little to avert climate change. It is clear that all the biofuel in the world will be a blip on the total consumption of fossil fuel. In the US, for instance, it is agreed that if the entire corn crop is used for ethanol, it can only replace 12 per cent of current gasoline—petrol—used in the country. A recent paper in the US Journal of Foreign Affairs estimates that filling a 95-litre fuel tank with pure ethanol will require about 200 kg of corn, which has enough calories to feed a person for a year.

If we factor in the fuel inputs that go into converting biomass to energy—from diesel to run tractors, natural gas to make fertilisers, fuel to run refineries—biofuel is not an energy-efficient option. It is estimated that roughly 20 per cent of corn-made ethanol is ‘new’ energy. This does not account for the water it will take to grow this new crop. There is also evidence that rainforests will be cut to expand the cultivation of soya, sugarcane and palm oil, which in turn will exacerbate climate change.

Don’t get me wrong: I am in favour of biofuel. But the question we need to ask is how to use it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, though we are only interested in maximising corporate profits, we believe rather naively that social objectives are being met.

Firstly, let us be clear that biofuels cannot substitute fossil fuels; but they can make a difference if we begin to limit the consumption of the latter. If this is the case, governments should not provide subsidies to grow crops for biofuel, as is being done in the US and Europe, but spend to limit their fuel consumption by reducing the sheer numbers of vehicles on their roads. If this is done, biofuels, which are renewable and emit less greenhouse gases, will make a difference. Otherwise, we are only fooling ourselves.

Secondly, the question is where will the biofuels be used? Let us be clear that the opportunity for a massive biofuel revolution is not in the rich world’s cities, to run vehicles—but in the grid-unconnected world of Indian or African villages. It is here that there is a scarcity of energy—electricity to power homes, fuel to cook, to run generator sets to pump water and to run vehicles. It is also here that the use of fossil fuels will grow because there is no alternative.

Instead of bringing fossil fuel long distances to feed this market, this part of the world can leapfrog to a new energy future—from no fuel to the most advanced fuel. The biofuel can come from non-edible tree crops—jatropha in India, for example—grown on wasteland, which will also employ people.

This fuel market will demand a different business model. It cannot be conducted on the basis of the so-called free market model, which is based on economies of scale and, therefore, demands consolidation and leads to uncompetitive practices. In today’s model, a company will grow the crops, extract the oil, transport it first to refineries and then back to consumers.

The new generation biofuel business needs a model of distributed growth in which we have millions of growers and millions of distributors and millions of users. Remember, climate change is not a technological fix but a political challenge. Biofuel is part of a new future.

— Sunita Narain

biofuel, ethanol, fuel crisis, rant

Here’s an irony: I used to live in the country, a small town with fewer than 900 residents, and I used to speed. Now I live in the city, well, as much of a city as New Hampshire can manage, and I’m driving slower.

Driving slower not just because Manchester’s traffic lights are on timers they leave me listening to crickets chirping at empty intersections while they blindly tick tick tick through the cycles before finally giving me the green (usually just as somebody arrives at the newly reddened light on the other street).

No, I’m driving slower because I can. When I commuted from Warren it was a winding road packed with drivers either speeding or Sunday driving. And if I didn’t want to get stuck behind the off-day Sunday drivers, I had to go fast, and pass at every opportunity. Now, on a multi-lane highway, I can go my speed. And the weird thing is: my speed isn’t as fast as I thought it was.

My elders, and those who are just older than me, have been saying this for a while, so it’s hard to admit. But I ease the pain by knowing that my small change in behavior has led to a dramatic increase in fuel economy.

Previously, I’d be lucky to get 30MPG in my Scion xB, and that figured dropped to as little as 26 to 28MPG on the highway. But now I’m getting 33 to 35MPG with highway driving. Yes, I’m getting 10 to 20% better gas mileage, free.

The risk now is that I’ll become as self-righteous as some hybrid-driving do-gooders.

[tags]gas mileage, mileage, fuel economy, driving, commuting, habits[/tags]

I learned of it last night on The CBC’s As It Happens: Miles Hilton-Barber, blind since age 30, has flown from Biggen Hill, south of London, to Gosford, outside Sydney, by ultralight in a journey that took almost two months.

Aviation regulations required he take a sighted co-pilot, but in the As It Happens story he explained how his instruments were geared up to give him audio and voice feedback such that he could do most of it on his own.

Still, one gets the idea that the man wouldn’t let a lack of suitable instruments keep him from making the flight or any other adventure. Speaking with Hilton-Barber before his flight, BBC World Service explained:

55-year old Miles Hilton-Barber has already competed in the gruelling Marathon des Sables, has climbed in the Himalayas, hurtled downhill on a bobsleigh, and holds the lap record for a blind man on the Malaysian Formula 1 motor-racing circuit.

In a presentation to the National Federation of the Blind, Hilton-Barber noted that his callsign was to be “Batman” — “because I am blind as a bat” — and related a story from his youth:

I was eighteen, growing up in Rhodesia, what is now called Zimbabwe. I joined the Air Force. I could still see then. I didn’t know I was going to go blind, and neither did they. But they said, “Sir, you will never become a pilot because your eyesight isn’t good enough.” Just the other day I was sitting in my bath back in England, and I suddenly remembered that occasion. I said, “Blow me down. Thirty-five years later, even though I can’t see a thing, I now have the privilege of flying more than halfway around the world.” Don’t tell me you can’t live your dreams!

Miles Hilton-Barber, flight, blind, adventure, blind as a bat, flying blind, inspiring

Even Bob Borchers, Apple’s senior director of iPod worldwide product marketing, calls most iPod car setups an “inelegant mess of cassette adaptors and wires.” Indeed, while Apple aparently doesn’t want to get into the car audio business, they do want to improve the in-car iPod experience:

What Apple really wants you to buy is a car that’s designed from the ground up to interface with the iPod,” the Web site said. “The 30-pin connector on newer iPods can transmit all the information displayed on the iPod screen to a remote display. This lets car manufacturers display track information on the dashboard.

Still, Apple has a long way to go in uncluttering the wires from the iPod ecosystem. After reviewing current iPod integration offerings from premium car makers like Audi, BMW, Mini, and from audio/accessory vendors Pioneer, Kensington, and Dension, Francois Planque gives up on the fancy tricks and reccommends the simplest solutions possible:

I could go on and on with other iPod integration solutions, but really, most of them are pure crap. The only thing they get right is charging your iPod while you drive!

However, if you seriously care about listening to your iPod in your car, if you want to listen to podcasts and not to the same old playlist again and again, I think the only effective solution today is to use the iPod’s native interface and get the analog sound out, either through the headphone jack, or through the dock connector with an adapter.

You can then pump the audio into your car stereo in several ways:

• A cassette adapter (bit quality sound won’t be that good)
• A jack connector on your head unit if you’re lucky to have one
• RCA connectors at the back of some head units (you can get an optional box from some manufacturers, like Pioneer…)

Then of course, some kind of docking system to have your iPod accessible at a convenient position can also help, compared to leaving your iPod on the passenger seat.

If you can’t live without charging your iPod while you drive, then the Dension RDS solution may be the best deal.

Anything more “advanced” is currently a waste of money. It’s good for demos and showing off. It’s useless for daily use.

Jake Ludington agrees, saying “big fat deal” to the much vaunted iPod + BMW integration that displays only playlist and track numbers — not names! — on the car’s stereo.

Integration means the metadata attached to the song gets passed to the car stereo system. Buttons built into the steering wheel don’t really make this better; the iPod’s remote could have accomplished the same thing, with very little intrusion.

So, aside from putting an iPod Hi-Fi on the dash, what’s a person to do to get easy iPod control in the car?

Joe Padula posted some pics of a very classy-looking mod (picture above) that turned his car’s in-dash cassette deck into an iPod dock, but he doesn’t show how he’s controlling it.

The iStore offers an adapter that seems to offer some promise. The iPod connects to the stereo via a standard dock connector, users can control the tracks via the car stereo and the iPod’s built-in controls.

Unlike some other car solutions, iPod2Car does not disable the controls or display of your iPod, so you will still be able to view track details and playlist information on your iPod. You will still be able to control the iPod with its controls in addition to your radio controls.

DICE Electronics has a similar offering that promises the addition of song titles in the radio display as well as an additional auxiliary input.

The good news is that at $160, it’s less expensive than iPod2Car’s adapter while appearing to offer more features, and it’s available for my Scion XB.

Now, where did the simple line-in jacks that were common on stereos ten years ago disappear to?

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