Automotive
How many engineers?
See the mechanic working on my Renault Clio. Do you know what he’s doing? Looks like he’s trying to squeeze his arm into a tiny space between some metal beams in the engine compartment frame. Why is he doing that? Because he wants to replace a burned out light bulb in the headlamp assembly. Actually … Read more
A small difference
Here we have two glove compartments. The one on the left is from the Renault Clio; the other from a Mazda 3. They serve the same simple function and – not surprisingly – look pretty much the same, if you ignore the nice touch in the Mazda’s, that places the latch closer to the driver. … Read more
How to make headlamps expensive
Here are the headlamps of two Mazda cars. On the left, a Mazda 323 from the first half of the past decade, the other a Mazda 3 from the second half. Both fine family cars. See the difference in design strategy? The car on the left has the headlamp split into two parts. The one … Read more
A weird sight indeed
I saw the… whatever… below in Hackney, London, and can’t resist sharing it with you. Is this a weird whatever-it-is or what? 🙂
Peugeot’s breakthrough in Crystallogrpahy
One of the first scientific facts you learn as a child is that snowflakes, those lovely art creations of nature, have a six-fold symmetry. And they do; the properties of water molecules see to that. Hence the standard symbol for snow (and freezing, and cold in general). One of the much later facts you learn … Read more
At last, a sensible exit sign!
Those depressing multi-story parking structures are an unavoidable part of a driver’s life… and they can get quite annoying when you need to find your way out of one. Sure, there are signs. Here, for example, is one garage that takes no chances on our missing the exit, and advertises it bilingually and redundantly: The … Read more
Where are our car windows going?!
Something weird is happening to car designers. Back in the mid-seventies there was one car in my home town that someone had imported from the US, and I remember how futuristic it looked to us then. Photo source: Wikimedia Commons. This was the remarkably innovative AMC Pacer, and it had those huge wrap-around windows that … Read more
Bike stuntmen, Munich awaits you!
I’ve already addressed pedestrian crossing signals in Germany, but here’s a truly surprising one, which I sighted in Munich. So what does it mean? One can imagine what the intended usage is, but if one were to believe the images literally, this signal tells you when it’s OK to do acrobatic stunts on your bike … Read more
Cool innovation in a parking garage
I was trying to find a parking spot in the parking garage under the Ramat Aviv shopping mall in Tel Aviv; this is a difficult task much of the time. But it was made very much easier because I discovered they have a truly wonderful system. What you see here is that over each space … Read more