Last year was the 70th anniversary of the Land Rover marque. One of the commemorative events involved a visit to a remote community in West Bengal, deep in the Himalayas. Known as the “Land of Land Rovers,” they are reliant on a fleet of dozens of meticulously maintained Series Land Rovers dating back as far as 1957. The video shows the 31km journey made frequently by the residents of Maneybhanjang, which sits at an altitude of 3,636m.
Lydia Ricci makes tiny sculptures from scraps. “Paper, board, the back side of anything, glue, tape, staples and what was almost thrown away.” I’ve shared some of her pieces before. Each time I look at these I find myself wanting to watch the artist create these.
“The prediction comes from a survey of 15- to 39-year-old contemporary radio format partisans. The number of survey respondents who own an AM/FM radio outside their car fell from 48% in 2017 to 41% in 2018. Smart speaker ownership is posting an opposite trajectory from 14% in 2017 to 24% in 2018. Based on those rates, AM/FM radio ownership is projected to decline to 34% by 2020, while smart speakers are anticipated to rise to 41% by that year.”
“The survey also asked what audio services the respondents used. Across the ages of the survey participants, all posted the highest rates for on-demand audio, topped by ages 15-19 with 77%. YouTube was the second-most common, again with 15-19 year-olds leading consumption at 70%. Pandora had a mixed set of results, with ages 30-34 posting 38% use and ages 25-29 posting 37%, while ages 15-19 had 28%.”
From the shop of Paul Bandelier: “Essentially, every part had to be created or custom fit to work. Virtually no easy bolt-on equipment. The engine is a new crate motor from Cummins called the R2.8. It’s a pretty popular re-power option for a lot of vintage trucks.” Here’s a great video of the Commando on (and off) the road.
An ex-Forest Service truck. The entire drivetrain is from a 1992 Dodge Cummins donor truck. Thus there was no need to fabricate and engineer every single piece. With some work, all of the ’92 parts fit in the ’72 body and frame. The pride and joy of Paul Bandelier.
Dr. Tergin discovered a leak (red oval) where the exhaust manifold connects to the exhaust pipe. This rebuilt 300Tdi engine was supposed to have a turbocharger but there simply wasn’t room and I knew I wasn’t planning to do the sort of driving that needed the turbo. It was still a bitch to get the exhaust system connected. And it appears somebody sort of skimped on the Turbine Inlet Flange (red arrow). George will have Andy Cain at Capital Machine fabricate a most excellent flange and then make some improvements to the exhaust system. Larger diameter exhaust for starters and we’ll probably do away with the muffler altogether since there’s general agreement the truck could not possibly be any louder.
“According to quantum mechanics, any two electrons must necessarily be completely identical. […] This is not merely to say that there is now way of telling the particles apart: the statement is considerably stronger than that. If an electron in a person’s brain were to be exchanged with an electron in a brick, then the state of the system would be exactly the same state as it was before, not merely indistinguishable from it! […] What distinguishes the person from his house is the pattern of how his constituents are arranged, not the individuality of the constituents themselves.”
—The Emperor’s New Mind by Roger Penrose