Bucrania—a new word for me I came across the other week…used in the context of the Neolithic Turkish settlement we call Çatalhöyük. The archaeologist I was reading defined it as cattle horns and skulls in a display context, interpreted as intended to impress, intimidate, and remind visitors how important their hosts were.

So, I drove up on this semi-load, and all these projecting arms were aligned and appeared as one, and thought: modern mechanical bucrania.

My OOTF reports that this vehicle, first shown from the front the other day, is now identified!

It’s a Dodge M37. Began production in 1950 for the Korean War and continued until 1968. Nearly 111,000 were built and some are still running today. Top speed is 55 mph and they get about 9 mpg.

Nice to have vehicular mysteries solved. Thanks for the research, OOTF.

Seattle is quite the transportation hub. Duh.

This was in the yard near the RR car fix-it garage. Large size.

Weather report: overcast, but no rain most of the day. Yippee!

Any historical rundown of technological ingenuity and innovation must include happenings in the Detroit Metro area. I have seen (and explored) drive-through liquor stores—and I don’t mean a drive-up window; I mean structures, some with solid doors to close out the weather, and other similar stay-in-your vehicle retail establishments. Here I note my first drive-through Sbux, and it’s in the the Detroit area.

We just drove-through once, but based on that experience, I’d hypothesize that the drive-through alley creates a Venturi effect that slows the staff dramatically. Or something. Gad, they were slow.

Food for thought: are these drive-through business establishments mostly vendors of food/drink?

It’s tough on auto companies.

They need to develop the next generation of product, but if they send their test cars out in public (after all, there’s only so much you can learn in the lab or on the test track), they must endure snoopy spies…who photograph and post pictures of the not-yet-released vehicles on the internet, so secrecy is…stomped? diminished? destroyed?

So, I’m one of those people who saw, photographed, and posted.

Store One: Apple Store. Test item: iPad Mini.

Niiiiice. Really nice.

Store Two: Microsoft. Test item: Surface.

A bit slow, nice screen. Kinda strange (for a Mac-person).

Store Three: Office Depot. Test item: Nexus 7.

Really slow (sales-dude said the system was overloaded—not a good sign); never loaded photos from this blog, just text. Screen fine. Text strange (as in different fonts) but readable. Map cacheing isn’t quite what we expected.

Take away….

I now know what it’s like to hold the Mini—I’d hold it from the side and use one hand by instinct, but that’s not the most efficient way; take a lesson: learn the two-handed cradle that’s best for phone-typing.

Tempted by the new iPad mini?

It’s 5.3 inches wide, and after fiddling with a ruler, I’m thinking that my hand doesn’t have a wide enough span for that to be comfortable to hold between thumb and fingers. I saw in the demo that some models were holding it on one edge. That sounds tricky too, as you have to avoid spurious contact with the touchscreen.

My thought is, hold one first if you have smaller hands and desire one-handedness….

We saw many, many specimens of rubber meeting the road today, as in deposited there…after degrading and separating from the tire they were originally part of. And, we felt these were fresh samples, as they were still in the lanes, and not yet marginalized by repeated traffic.

I really like our simplehuman™ dish drainer.

Except. Except the fancy draining design (vaguely visible at left) accumulates…crud…and periodically needs disassembly and cleaning. Which is a pain.

I see they’ve redesigned the dish rack, but I’m guessing I’d still have the crud accumulation problem…. Maybe, just maybe, it’s mostly the water.

This beastie strongly prefers being an indoor cat, I’m convinced. Still…he train-watches.

In part, this is for you, Jeff.