Ace-Garageguy

I appreciate your input, but I'm not talking about strays or dogs let out. I'm talking about people who walk their dogs on leashes, according to the strict local animal control ordinance here, and let them do their thing in other folks' yards. I've been working in my home office and looked out the window multiple times to see it happen. With my own eyes. And I've gone outside and asked the walkers to please not let their animals defecate on my property. Multiple times. But as ol' hobbybob says, they think "it's their dog's right to poop in your yard and what right do you have to deny it..." and I'm the crazy old geezer doing a "get off my lawn" routine. EDIT: But personal responsibility, common courtesy, and common sense are going the way of the dodo.

Universal big-T Truth right there.

A lot depends on the exact time period you want to represent. Earlier M/SP cars ran less rear rubber and had higher noses. Around the time they were absorbed by the altered classes, often lower noses and lots more rear rubber.

Yup. And just think..the environment whiners wouldn't be advocating for people who had nothing to do with dumping plastic in oceans and waterways to be forced to take on the responsibility to clean it all up...there wouldn't be anything to clean up. Damm hard for me to understand why that's too hard to grasp.

Best laugh I've had all day. Please explain to me why it's MY responsibility to buy and spread pepper all over my yard SO SOMEBODY ELSE'S DOG WON'T DUMP IN IT WHEN THE OWNER WALKS THE ANIMAL. HINT: Think about why nobody has to spread deterrent to keep ME from dumping my cat's box in THEIR yard.

All the hiking trails around here have plastic bag dispensers for dog exhaust too, and dedicated receptacles the owners are expected to use to dispose of same. But on every hike, I see at least a dozen little blue bags full of dog goo, neatly tied up and left beside the trail for somebody ELSE to take away. Not only stupid, lazy, and personal-responsibility-free, it exhibits ZERO COMMON SENSE. It's less "polluting" to let the animal do its mess in the woods next to the trails...where beetles, ants, etc. will recycle most of it completely in a very short period of time, and where whatever's left becomes fertilizer for the existing plants.

I spoke too soon...

IT'S NOT MY PLACE TO PUT OUT DETERRANT TO DOGS CRAPPING IN MY YARD. IT'S THE DOG'S OWNER'S RESPONSIBILITY TO SEE IT DOESN'T HAPPEN ... mate.

Somebody using my yard for their dog's toilet, frequently. I stepped in somebody's pet's stinking goo this AM on the way to work. Thanks, whoever you are. I need to find out who's doing it and dump my cat box in their yard. There's a strip of grass across the street (between it and the railroad) where nobody ever walks, that belongs to the state, . Can't use that though. EDIT: Or better yet...let your dogs poo in your own dammed yard. And as the demographics of the area continue to shift, there is a drastic increase in the amount of trash thrown out by passing motorists...predominately lotto tickets, fast-food remains, and beer cans. Somebody thoughtfully offloaded some tires, a bed, and some busted furniture in the wooded area 50 feet down the block, too.

I see you're very concerned about cleaning up plastic and garbage from oceans and waterways. I also see you live close to Lake Oroville, and the Pacific Ocean is only about a 2 hour drive from your home. I'm curious to know, in light of your evident environmental consciousness, exactly what you have done to address this issue. Please explain exactly how this works to those of us too blinded by the concept of "free market" to understand.

Truly great cars, very nice work.

Indeed...

Here's a link to one of the most fair and balanced and honest and rational articles I've come across so far regarding this topic (and I'm fully aware that "fair and balanced and honest and rational" has little appeal for those who see everything through the lens of dogma): https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/heres-why-richard-bransons-flight-matters-and-yes-it-really-matters/

That was always my understanding, and it's why people from all over the world who want to work to achieve a better life still see this country as the-land-of-unlimited-opportunity. But we have an ever growing element who think they're entitled to a zero-effort free ride. Many of these same folks believe that everyone who achieves success does it by stealing from the poor, the pitiful, and the downtrodden; so rather than building productive, rewarding lives, they make excuses and look for someone to lay the blame on for their failure. And while it's true that the world has no shortage of the insanely greedy, power-mad, corrupt, and crooked, it's not true that those terms apply to all who achieve wealth.

Thanks guys. She'll be back on the bench (with a bunch of others) in her new home, some time after Thanksgiving.

A couple of the more annoying glitches actually got fixed. 'bout time. Yup.

My sentiments exactly.

I don't have much use for Bezos or his company, though he's made his money fair and square in a free-market system. Nobody has ever been coerced to work for him or buy from him. And though he's no rocket scientist himself, being what's known now as a "midwit", he saw the potential of modern technology to implement the old-as-mankind "buy low, sell high" middleman philosophy on a global scale. And at least he's spending a chunk of his cash on fostering new technologies...even though typically he pays his own rocket scientists considerably less than Mr. Musk pays his. Mr. Branson made much of his pile providing transportation in markets simply unserved by anyone else. No surprise he should get in on the ground floor of the space tourism business...and his bucks have made the development of the Rutan-derived second-generation reusable "space plane" a reality. The vehicle has countless potential uses and benefits for Earth-bound humanity, most of which most humans haven't even thought of yet. And speaking of Mr. Musk, I personally see his interest in the colonization of other worlds as hopeful indeed, but tempered by a hard acceptance of reality. He cautions against the rapid development of self-aware AI, knowing full well it's likely to exhibit every negative characteristic of human nature, while developing AI himself. He knows bad AI is inevitable, humans being what they are, and is working to counter it. He's also working to build systems that have the potential to impact the environment in positive ways, but once again is enough of a realist to understand that people will continue fouling their own nest just because that's what most people do...while blaming somebody else. Mr. Musk's efforts toward space colonization are intended to provide a fallback position for humanity in the event most people continue being destructive, wasteful, willfully-ignorant, hypocritical, and stupid. Which is pretty dammed likely. That, to me, is the epitome of "hope".

Funny how none of these space-race guys inherited or stole their wealth, but they should be penalized for the success they achieved through hard work and applied intelligence in a free-market system. Time for Atlas to shrug. And I'm always curious to know the carbon-footprint and daily efforts to "save the planet" of folks who make pronouncements like this. Personally, I'd hazard to guess that my own carbon-footprint and contribution to pollution in general is among the lowest of anyone frequenting this board...even though I'm a hard-core hands-on gearhead and often operate older pre-emissions vehicles.

Not only a hemi-powered Ferrari, but a hemi-powered GREEN Ferrari. Yes, definitely.

I LIKE it...probably 'cause I started something kinda similar some time back. There was a time when an old Ferrari with a blown engine wasn't worth much more than its scrap value, and at least one real pontoon-fender TR did get American V8 power. EDIT: Back in the late '50s and well into the '60s, there was no shortage of people pulling fiberglass molds from existing sports car bodies and making copies, or building original designs. A repop TR body could easily have been mounted to a frame like you're using, etc. etc. etc. The M/SP class would be where something like this would have ended up, so it's actually entirely possible as a what-if. Definitely cool.

Let me help you complete this train of thought. To ensure you're not a part of the problem, first get rid of your computer and phone. Then disable your AC and heat. Give your car away; better yet, just abandon it in front of a recycling station. Don't take or use anything from the evil exploitave system. Plant a subsistence garden in your yard, and live entirely off-grid, like a peasant in the 1600s. There. All fixed. Much more effective than virtue-signaling on social media, doncha think?

Works for me...'cept it's three 26 foot vans, two of 'em pulling trailers, and a pair of multi-car transporters. Changing the world, or just changing one's own life, takes effort. A lot of effort. But I guess in your view, those early humans who left the Rift Valley 70,000 years ago to find greener pastures just should have stayed there, content to live in grass-and-mud huts, living on roots and bugs.

Filthy swamp-east weather. It's been overcast, pissy-dribble-raining, with humidity over 90% for weeks. This is the mildew, mold, rot, rust, and bug capitol of the "civilized" world. If I needed a reminder of why I'm spending thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to move to the desert, this nasty summer sure as jell has been it.

Burt Rutan's Space Ship One was the first privately-funded craft to make it to the edge of space, in June of 2004. Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic was intended to have been offering commercial flights by 2008, but due to the magnitude of the task involved, and inevitable problems with ground-breaking physical technology, this was knocked back several years. Branson's (and crew) flight on July 11 of 2021, in vehicles developed directly from engineering pioneered on the earlier Rutan effort, marks the successful completion of the vehicle development. Passenger flights are expected to commence after two more sub-orbital shakedown missions. Of far more importance to the future of mankind, however, is the renewed interest in and commitment to establishing colonies on the Moon and Mars...largely utilizing technologies and hardware being developed by Elon Musk's people. While much of Earth-bound humanity continues to engage in increasingly petty and ignorant squabbling among the philosophical cesspools many choose to inhabit, the best and brightest have their attention focused on the stars.