Very pleased with the spare tire mounted in the “tub” of the Land Rover. The bottom photo makes it appear to take up more space than it does. It was either here or on a swing-arm at the back of the truck. I prefer this. And the rear seats will be replaced with a couple of custom cushions (and no back).
“Since early October, autonomous trucks built and operated by the startup Embark have been hauling Frigidaire refrigerators 650 miles along the I-10 freeway, from a warehouse in El Paso, Texas, to a distribution center in Palm Springs, California.”
“For now, the Embark milk runs are designed to test logistics as well as the safety of the technology. On each trip, a human driver working for Ryder (a major trucking company and Embark’s partner on this venture) heads over to the Frigidaire lot in El Paso, picks up a load of refrigerators, hauls them to the rest stop right off the highway, and unhitches the trailer. Then, a driver working for Embark hooks that trailer up to the robotruck, cruises onto the interstate, pops it into autonomous mode, and lets it do its thing. The truck mostly sticks to the right lane and always follows the speed limit. Once in Palm Springs, the human pulls off the highway, unhitches the trailer, and passes the load to another Ryder driver, who takes it the last few miles to Frigidaire’s SoCal distribution center.”
Big day for The Land Rover Project. Mr. Wolf (left) is in San Marcos doing a final inspection on the truck. Luke Richards (right) was in charge of the restoration. Assuming the truck does well on this afternoon’s test drive, it’s back to the Bay Area for the final shakedown cruise.
UPDATE: Okay. Looks like the restoration is done and the truck will head for Mr. Wolf’s garage before the end of the month. Not sure how long he’ll need to “break it in” but I’m hoping to have it before the end of the year.
Has Oscar written all over it.
“There’s plenty of trust out there. It just isn’t where it used to be. Trust, the glue that holds society together, has shifted from institutional trust to a new form of distributed trust. Instead of flowing upwards to institutions, experts, authorities and regulators, it now flows horizontally to peers, friends, colleagues and fellow users. […] And because trust is moving into the hands of the many, there will be more of it around.”
“Distributed trust, combined with technology, also means that within the next decade, we’ll be comfortable trusting well-trained bots, whether they’re driving us around, giving us financial advice, or telling us if we have cancer.”
Mr. Wolf shares more photos from The SEMA Show, “the premier automotive specialty products trade event in the world.[…] The 2016 SEMA Show drew more than 70,000 domestic and international buyers.”
Classic Toyota Land Cruiser gets updated
I like the basic look of this truck (very similar to the classic Land Rover) but not fond of all the modern updates. $200K? Link above to more photos.
I’ve mentioned my fondness for Ally, the online bank. Been using it for a few years and do virtually all my banking with them. As one might expect, their mobile apps are damned good. This week they sent me an email about their Card Controls app. (Not sure if this is new or I’m just becoming aware of it) And for all I know, other credit cards have had these features for a while. Pretty sure my Chase VISA card does not.
Short version: the app “lets you take control of your Ally Bank debit card, so you can define when, where and how your card is used. You can: View transactions, establish spending limits, manage notifications and more.”
You can turn the card off and on. If I misplace my wallet I can disable the card until I find it and then turn it back on.
Use to be a pain in the ass to cancel a lost card only to find it 10 minutes later.
Establish spending limits and merchant categories. Transactions can also be controlled and monitored for specific merchant categories like gas stations, department stores, restaurants, entertainment, travel and supermarkets.
Not really clear on when one would want to do this. The jury is still out on titty bars.
Location-based controls. Using your phone’s GPS, the My Location feature can limit transactions to merchants located within a certain range of your phone’s location. You can also restrict purchases made in a specific region and deny international transactions.
I disabled international transactions. Like I said, this might be old stuff and I just noticed but I really like have this kind of control.
