American and best.
GM has hit it out of the park with its new mid-engined Corvette. Starting at $62k with an 8-speed double clutch transmission (as popularized by Porsche) with instantaneous gear changes, it’s one third the price of a Ferrari and looks every bit as good. Goes like stink, too.
iPhone 12 Pro Max snap.
Be seen, not hammered.
One of the great mysteries of the powered two wheel world is why manufacturers do not fit running lights. These are directional indicators which are kept on at all times, flashing when the directional button is activated.
Why do these matter?
The brains of car drivers are trained to look for two or three rear lights. Ride a motorcycle and all you have in the rear is a single license plate/red tail light and a stop light on braking. The triangulation effect is missing. That effect, as occupational psychologists will preach to you, means that two or three light sources are far more likely to garner attention than one, aiding in awareness and distance judgment. It’s why aircraft have three warning beacons – awareness and depth/distance perception.
And in the US red running lights are legal, yet motorcycle makers do not fit them. A bad decision by the accountants as a dead rider is not a repeat customer. Oh! well.
Yet running lights are easily added. You can have the kluge version of just adding LEDs, somehow powered from the chassis wiring. Or you can fit aftermarket sockets, as I have on my Airhead, to accept dual filament bulbs powering the second filament at all times to create running lights. However no such plug-and-play aftermarket sockets exist for Honda’s superb Silverwing maxi scooter and I do not like the thought of butchering the scoot’s bodywork.
But there’s a third elegant alternative and it requires that a ‘normally on’ relay is interposed between the electrical flasher feed and the single filament directional bulb. Appropriately wired, the relay will transmit full power to the directional bulb at all times, except when the directional switch is used, when the relay willl alternatively switch that bulb off and on. A single filament bulb now doubles as a running light and directional indicator.
The relays for my installation ran all of $15 and here is the schematic. This will work for all non-CANBUS circuits on any motorcycle, and is not nuclear physics to install:
I still need to change those amber bulbs for red ones, but I doubt that Constable Clod will care while he is deep in his donut and coffee. And here is that swap, with a low power use red LED replacing the hot incandescent bulb:
A tad forlorn.
The Silverwing visits DC Ranch, early morning.
This is an upmarket local shopping center, many of whose businesses failed in the 2020/21 pandemic. This year they are trying to drum up support with an early show of Christmas cheer, mindless of the fact that the scourge of Covid will return with a vengeance as the weather cools.
iPhone 12 Pro Max snap.
In the old world.
iPhone 12 Pro Max.
The Big Boys still don’t get it.
With every new announcement from the big camera makers (“Look, no mirror”, “Can make your breakfast”, and so on) I am reminded of our military leaders. Forever fighting the last war. “You mean a single cruise missile can take out our $50 billion aircraft carrier and her complement of 5,000 sailors? Obviously, we need to build more aircraft carriers”.
And Canon, Nikon et al are building aircraft carriers.
Wandering around the garden the other night I was reminded of this lack of vision (well, it was plenty dark out there) when I spotted this rock illuminated by a single, distant landscape light. Out came the iPhone, Night Mode came on automatically, I held the thing more or less steady in my hand and click. There it was.
And like those generals’ war toys, the toys passing as modern ‘professional’ cameras are already so much useless junk.
iPhone 12 Pro Max Snap, no Pentagon technology involved.