Beam me up to Enterprise Oregon in the summer. Wallowa County is Oregon’s Alps and my wife wants to go back badly. I just don’t want the 6 hour drive to get there, although everything except the stretch of I-84 and a bit of industrial La Grande is scenic. Once you get there you have a choice of winding roads,  gravel…

A nice but not perfect feature is outside air temperature. Since most modern engine management systems have an ambient air temperature sensor it's a simple thing to display it. I noticed this because my 2002 F150 XLT has a temperature display but our 2003 Buick LeSabre doesn't despite having a trip computer with…

It would be more accurate to say a girdle manufacturer built space suits since Playtex was better known for the 18 hour girdle at the time. Also controlling tummy bulge was more relevant to space suit design. I'm kind of surprised NASA hasn't reached out to Spanx for their next suit design 

Probably a combination of not wanting to spend money to bury lines, not having environmental approval from California to trench and bury lines, and not having a big enough disaster to force it. New construction probably has underground utilities but they haven’t retroftted older areas.

This looks unpleasantly like the power line fault that started the Paradise fires in 2018. California has had 6 years to take preventive action and failed to clear trees and upgrade power lines. 

I'd be lot more interested if Oregon still registered Kei trucks.  As it stands I'll go for a standard size JDM van

I watch Squatch253 who is both obsessive and knowledgeable and I Do Cars, who admits ignorance,  but is still smarter than he let's on. 

I don’t see it as gatekeepers. The majority of motorcycles have a manual transmission with a clutch so not learning shifting and clutch control leaves a new rider locked into a small number of niche motorcycles. An automatic does make sense in dense traffic which is why this is a JDM bike, and why it’s a middle tier…

I regularly drive a 2002 Ford F150,  and occasionally ride my 1978 BMW R100S.  My son's fleet is even older,  he more or less dailies a 99 Suburban and just took delivery of a 99 HiAce.  

I rode in a snowstorm once. Fortunately it was just a short run from Portchester NY to Thornwood NY, so I could get to House of Triumph to fix the transmission on my BMW Airhead. I could only dream of having heated gear, because I could barely afford the bike and my rent.  

It's a janky electric Dolmette

It’s intellect versus instinct,  out on the road a 1-2 upshift blows through neutral without hesitating

Motorcycles are likely to stay manual much longer outside the niches of scooters and small utility bikes. FWIW think of your motorcycle as a WRX with a sequential gearbox.  I learned to ride after several years driving a manual car and apart from finding neutral never had an issue

120 lbs of motor and battery, and a $6000 premium are deal breakers for me. As a proof of concept and early adopter product it’s good, as a practical bike it’s not there yet.

I think learner bikes should have a standard clutch, because riding your small displacement bike is the time and place to learn clutch control. Having an automatic clutch means a rider is either limited to automatics or has to learn on the next bike. It potentially puts a new rider in the situation of a CDL driver who…

These are actually standard forest fire gear, it's just most belong to state and federal agencies rather than a city fire department.  Wildland firefighting has the coolest stuff

“Why SpongeBob, why?”

There is a pilot's speedrunning community where they compete for high ground speeds and ahead of schedule landings.  Neither of these flights top TWA's supersonic 727 which actually made a Sonic boom after hitting an air pocket and going into a power dive. The plane was returned to service after a thorough inspection 

You misunderstood,  friction drive refers to using a roller to drive the wheel instead of a chain or shaft

The market needs a good inexpensive small car. Unfortunately a US market Yaris costs Toyota as much as a Corolla so they lose profit on the less expensive car. I think the only way around is low cost manufacturing.  Build in Thailand with minimal options like an early Accord is an idea, because China is about to…