Living at a time when a new technology is just developing is exciting. You get to watch an invention get out there in the world and develop over time. Sometimes, it’s an aggravating invention, like AI, and sometimes it’s wonderful, like electric cars. I wonder how people felt when steam cars were all the rage?
Jason wrote about a hero driving an 118-year-old steam car. Sid Bridge:
Husband: I said the car will be ready to go in 20 minutes! I don’t want it to blow up and kill us.
Wife: Fine. I’ll just start walking to the store. If you get the car ready, you can catch up to me.
Husband: But honey…
Wife: Don’t “But honey” me! You’re the one who sold the horse for this thing!
There was an old-timey diagram in that post, and Hoser68 has words for it:
Oh, my engineer side is massively triggered.
The diagram has an “emergency boiler check valve”. NO, NO, NO, a 1000 times no.
That is a Safety valve, not a check valve. Perhaps Stanley is so old it uses different terminology (although the term Safety Valve is from the mid-1800s). This is critical, because I’ve seen people put a check valve in place of a Safety valve and very bad things have happened.
So, a quick primer.
Check valve. Flows one way. If this was a check valve, it would either only flow into the boiler or out of the boiler. If it flowed in, then the boiler could build up to a super high pressure and the valve wouldn’t open. If it only flowed out, it would not build pressure at all. The drawing doesn’t show a check valve.
Safety Valve. Doesn’t flow until the boiler pressure is too high, then it flow. Someone will call it a Relief valve, although officially when it’s on a Boiler, it’s called a Safety Valve and slightly different. The drawing looks odd, but does look like a safety valve, with perhaps a condensate drain line.
The danger I see is AI. AI learns from diagrams like this. I swear, 99% of what AI knows about steam systems come from Steam Punk graphic Novels. It’s not just wrong, it’s dangerously wrong 90% of the time, and this graphic of the Stanley boiler looks like what AI would generate, especially with mis-labeling a valve..
Matt wrote about how there’s a new pink Ford Bronco. Elhigh brought up what I think is a valid concern:
Sorry, I’m going to try very very hard not to write the words “Barbie Dream Bronco” more than this one time, but it’s going to be difficult. They suggest themselves.
This smacks of a committee getting together to try to market cars to women specifically, and we know that that is always a big, dumb, really insulting mistake. If they move more than 100 of these over the entire interval that they’re available, I will be surprised. Considering how much extra this package costs, I’ll be surprised if they sell 50.
V10omous makes a very good point:
It’s literally just an appearance package.
It’s possible to simply prefer a pink vehicle without getting into gender theory or feeling insulted.
They will sell thousands of them, if the pink Jeeps are any indication.
Nsane In The MembraNe:
I am a man with interests that are of the “traditionally masculine” variety. Sports, heavy music, guitars, fast cars, cooking meats, etc.
…If these were more reasonably priced I’d rock one without hesitation and my favorite color is purple. I am heterosexual but I’ve never thought twice about going to a gay bar with my queer friends, and I’ve always had a great time when I do. I watch way more women’s soccer than men’s soccer because I think their game is a lot grittier and more entertaining.
The moral of the story is….who the fuck cares? Enjoy what you enjoy and do it proudly. If you’re secure enough in your own identity shit like a hot pink Bronco won’t bother you in the slightest. Hell, if you’re like the majority of the people here you’ll probably think it’s rad.
Other than the price. Dear god…
I agree. It’s one thing to make a car full of silly gimmicks and say it’s for women. It’s another to just give a pink paint job to an existing vehicle. I love the latter. More cars should come in pink! But that price is nuts. Cool colors shouldn’t be locked behind a huge paywall. Smart once sold Fortwos in a metallic purple in America, but the paint was a hefty upcharge.
Have a great evening, everyone!
Top graphic image: Jason Torchinsky
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Pink is not the problem. It just has to be the right car. A Moulin Rouge ’70 Barracuda, absolutely. Elvis’ Cadillac, hell yeah.
A modern Bronco, and the pink is only accents… not sold on that. Certainly not for $13000. That said, good on Ford for trying.
I love the pink colour 911 GT3 Matt Armstrong has one, looks great.
Mary Kay Bronco.
I’ll see myself out.
Pink is great as an accent colour when done correctly.
When you’re a dude, it has the added benefit of quickly exposing bigots and general toxic masculinity, if my 6 years of rocking these stellar wheels says anything
This is such a real problem. When I worked at Cabela’s, we were opening a new store and one of the endcaps was to get women into archery. Everything was pink, and it was mostly garbage. There were pink lighted arrow knocks, which were not legal to hunt with in that state, a bow too weak to hunt with, a pink camo arm guard, and a pink camo release. No arrows, everything at about the lowest level of quality they carried, and no guidance regarding target vs hunting use. And, of course, it all cost extra for being pink.
I disassembled that and reworked it so fast.
I guess the main thing I’ve learned seeing both men’s and woman’s soccer and basketball games is holy shit are men incredibly fragile. You just have to barely touch their shoelace and their ankle twists in half. Fortunately in the 10 seconds writhing on the ground that it takes a ref to get over there they heal themselves.
You know they’re really hurt by the way they frantically wave for someone to come look at their boo-boo.
Watching rugby, you get a vibe that when they get off the field would happily have a pint at the pub with the opposing team.
Compared to so many other sports, rugby players seem far less absurd.
This is very much the case. The violence stays on the pitch.
Source: Spent many hours in rugby clubhouses as a lad.
Rugby players pretty much need to have a limb ripped off before they will leave the field involuntarily.
Tis but a scratch.
One of the national heroes of New Zealand is Buck Shelford, who during a match against France had his scrotum ripped open (and 4 teeth knocked out, but that rather pales in comparison). He had it stapled back together on the sideline and returned to the game before being knocked out for good with a thumping concussion.
Rugby. Sponsored by the red cross.
Rugby is my favorite spectator sport, and the culture of gentlemanly/gentlelady conduct is a big part of it. Under no circumstances are they ever disrespectful to the ref, and while they can go to war with their opponents on the pitch, you keep that shit on the pitch and share a pint (or twenty) with them later.
“Rugby is a thug’s game played by toffs, football is a toff’s game played by thugs”
Honestly, I just can’t watch a game of footie any more without spending the entire time comparing it unfavourably to rugby. All that diving, ‘wouldn’t get that in a rugby game’, the vibes based approach to extra time ‘wouldn’t get that in a rugby game’, etc etc.
The lack of FIFA with it’s blatant corruption & price gouging doesn’t hurt, either.
My experience is a couple years of reffing youth soccer, particularly as an AR (assistant ref). US soccer has a different culturally from most of the rest of the world.
The big thing is that at the youth refs are cross pollinated with American Football. They see a dive or a fake injury as “cheating” and not “gamesmanship” and will start ignoring significant fouls against players that they see as “cheaters”.
With Boys soccer, there is a lot of learning from other customs. You get European, African, and South American parents and coaches and then teach and ref with these influences. The result is that American Boys soccer is different than the rest of the world, but closer to it than the girls game.
With Girls soccer, there is very little learning from other customs. American women’s soccer has been dominating for decades and some of the best coaches are women that played in college or even in the USWNT.
As a result, the rougher US soccer culture is more accepted as the way you play soccer worldwide for the woman’s game. An American Men’s player can generally benefit from learning how to do the dives, fake injuries and the like to become more effective at the top level. While a European or South American woman can benefit from learning to run through fouls and to get up and keep playing instead of faking an injury to keep up with the American players.
Said it before and I’ll say it again: Men’s soccer is akin to fainting goats. Women’s soccer? Feral hogs.
Women’s Roller Derby is an excuse for abuse disguised as a sport..
If you watch international matches like Olympics and world cups, the big difference in both soccer and hockey is the quality of team play. Most of the women’s teams are training together full time year round and dedicated to the effort. They play like real teams. The men are usually professional prima donnas that show up and try to get to know each other on game day. They may be strong individual players, but it’s embarrassing to watch them try to operate as a team. Seriously, national teams would do well to insist that if you are going to play for them, you put the kind of time and effort in that the women do. The women sacrifice their other careers to represent their countries, the men are just selfish.