Most internet technology moves forwards through time and gains new features. Kinja is like the Benjamin Button of IT. Threaded commenting & notifications get less and less usable every week. Hyperlinks broke a couple of months ago; most other internet tech gained the ability to use hyperlinks in the 1990s. Eventually…

I agree and disagree. Poverty isn’t a good reason to stop fining bad drivers, but right now in many places a fine is a fixed amount which is life-changing to somebody poor, but a fly-speck to somebody rich, and that’s deeply unjust, which undermines respect for the law.

I have enduring memories of family holidays in the 1980s, going to a large campsite in Europe which had lots of families from different countries and its own little internal roads, and although there was nowhere really to drive to (unless you were heading off for your weekly grocery shopping at a faraway supermarket),…

Look, I don’t want to be the guy who always talks about consumer rights, but why is this tolerated so often in the USA? In a lot of developed countries, falsely advertising a cheap type of car as an expensive type of car is a pretty clear-cut crime and people get punished for that kind of thing. Sometimes even prison.

You say pointless, I say amazing. Tomato/tomato.

Listing cars in the “parts” section seems to be a way to skip some small listing fees. If the vendor’s willing to cut corners and do things the wrong way just to save a few $, what does that tell you about how the car’s been maintained?

The Fiat Ducato can theoretically tow 2500-3500kg, but they usually have EU-style towbars, often with lower weight ratings. Maybe you could fit an American-style hitch which was designed for the Ram ProMaster?

Duurtlang is wise. Big American-style RVs are very rare in Europe; they’re usually a similar size to this van. You want to be able to relax and enjoy your adventure without worrying about low bridges and narrow country lanes.

Steinbeck, Quixote, and a roadtrip with a dog and a glorious old GMC truck: That would make a perfect Jalopnik article!

Personally, I’ve done a mix of both, and:

I’m not sure about EMP. Outside of a full-scale nuclear war, most important car electronics will survive as they’re already wrapped in a Faraday cage. Inside a full-scale nuclear war, you probably have bigger things to worry about than “My car starts OK, but it won’t download any mapping updates”

Most carmakers have some kind of separation between autonomous-driving functionality and OTA updates. Maybe not perfect, maybe lack of integration isn’t an intentional security measure, but it still helps. So maybe DOS is more plausible? An attack that makes cars unusable (because millions of them refuse to start, or…

Anybody remember the Nokia 1610? Before smartphones were invented, everybody wanted a Nokia, and the 1610 had an optional solar panel on the back of the battery.

You should also know about the National Trust’s work in the UK. The Forest Service may have a lot of forests to worry about in the USA, but in the UK there’s also quite a lot of stone henges, which our distant ancestors used for timekeeping and ritual calendar purposes.

Also, we need a serious conversation about the stability and centre-of-gravity of Captain Caveman’s van.

If you were a fugitive from justice, wanted for a series of real and/or imaginary crimes, would you go around the country having adventures (and sneaking up on lots of petty gangsters and corrupt cops) in a heavily modded van with a unique paint job?

Mercedes have a “Granite green” on the X-class; looks great.

The market for modern-ish lifeboats - pulled off some random 1990s ferry or freighter when it gets scrapped or rebuilt - is terrible, because they’re are built to very specific safety rules, which means they’re just a floating GRP potato which is not good at other personal-boat stuff (like fishing or cruising or…

I’m OK with this. Actual driving behaviour is a great predictor of the risk that the driver will cause a collision. Without that data, insurers have to resort to demographic generalisations - how old are you, what gender, what career, which district you live in &c to calculate premiums and that can be uncomfortably…