Random Thoughts – Page 8

Tesla Reincarnated

Fun Fact: Tesla Motors began the new year 2020 as the most valuable car company — ever — in the United States. Its market capitalization of $80+ billion is more than Ford Motor Company’s 1999 peak; almost as much as Ford and GM combined. Tesla’s stock price has been on a wild up-and-down ride along with loose-cannon founder and CEO Elon Musk’s much-publicized missteps. The latest stock surge follows vehicle deliveries in the fourth quarter 2019 greater than even Musk had predicted

There are enough Teslas on the road now that some are inevitably finding their way into collision-repair shops and scrapyards. Tesla batteries, motors and even drive trains are being rebirthed in vintage Volkswagens, Porsches, Mustangs and other favorites of car buffs. Their fathers and grandfathers increased horsepower of internal-combustion engines and tuned exhaust for just the right sound; today auto enthusiasts are building more powerful, but silent custom cars.

For entrepreneurs, mostly in California, electric vehicle (EV) conversions are a growing business. One shop offers training classes teaching do-it-yourselfers to do conversions. A rusted ’49 Mercury, dubbed the “Derelict,” fitted with electric motor, Tesla batteries, power steering, air conditioning and Bluetooth, has won awards at car shows.

When an unlikely-looking car blows by you — silently — it could be powered by Tesla.

Greatest Christmas Album Ever

What is the best Christmas music ever recorded?
(Bonus points for finding the misspelled word.)

What is the all-time greatest album of Christmas music ever recorded?
(And can you find the misspelled word? — ***Elvis?***

Everything You Wanted to Know about Thanksgiving

“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”
– Jon Stewart

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1863. Well, that’s when it became an official holiday in the United States. Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation for the new holiday, partly an attempt to assuage the nation’s deep divide during the Civil War.
The real first Thanksgiving, to celebrate and express gratitude for a bountiful harvest, lasted three days at Plymouth Colony. Over the following decades, Thanksgiving observance became an annual tradition in New England.
Only a few women partook of the Thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony in 1621. That’s because only four of the twenty women who arrived on the Mayflower survived the first winter. By that time, about half of the approximately fifty colonists were children and teenagers.
Native Americans outnumbered colonists by about two to one. Ninety men from the nearby Wampanoag joined the colonists. They soon became BFF with the Pilgrims.
There was no Black Friday shopping after the First Thanksgiving as there were no retail stores. And there was no UPS to deliver Amazon parcels. Nor was there NFL football, as the Pilgrims had no television.
Native Americans had no tradition of formal Thanksgiving; giving thanks was integral to daily life. “Every time anybody went hunting or fishing or picked a plant, they would offer a prayer or acknowledgment.”
Wild turkeys were abundant in the region, but probably not a centerpiece of the feast. Goose and duck and even pigeon were the wildfowl of choice. Eels and shellfish, such as lobster, clams and mussels, likely were on the table. No mashed potatoes and gravy; potatoes, white or sweet, had not yet made their way to North America. Cranberry sauce? It was not until fifty years later that an Englishman reported what resulted from boiling the red berries with sugar.
Thanksgiving at Plymouth colony began the centuries of friendship between European immigrants and Native Americans. America’s manifest destiny even gave inspiration to Adolph Hitler and his lebensraum.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving. If you need a conversation starter at the dinner table, try “How about that impeachment?”

Google Not Being Evil

Google was famous for its distillation of business practices into the motto “Don’t be evil.” The phrase prefaced its corporate code of conduct, promulgated in 2000. Last year the company quietly removed the phrase. The company’s code of conduct is now more typically corporate-speak: “… the highest possible standards of ethical business conduct …” and so on.

(I am reminded of the pithy code of conduct posted at the late, lamented Powerhouse Brewery in Sebastopol California: “Be Nice or Leave.”)

Google recently paid $2.1 billion to buy Fitbit, maker of the tracking device worn by millions of health enthusiasts. Google now has not just the number of steps a person takes; Fitbit also records a person’s gender and date of birth, along with location, heart rate, sleep habits and more. (Of course, Google already knows where a person is and has been, in real life and on the Internet.)

Google’s mission to know — and monetize — every thing about every person. They recently partnered with Ascension, the second-largest health system in the U.S. Fitbit fills in some blanks around people’s health history including lab results, doctor diagnoses and hospitalization records. So far, they’ve gathered millions of health care records from hospitals in twenty-one states.

Neither doctors nor patients have been told that the data is being shared with Google, but there is no need for worry, because they won’t be evil.

Random Climate Factoids

Wineries and growers in California are hedging their risk from a changing climate by purchasing vineyard land in Oregon and Washington. The Northwest states, relative newcomers to the wine business, initially were known for Pinot Noir and Riesling, varieties that struggled in cooler environments but did spectacularly well some vintages. The quality of Northwest wines, though, varied from year to year because of inconsistent weather. Wines produced in the prime regions of northern California, differentiated themselves according to micro-climates, with weather patterns predictably reliable each year.

As the planet warms, vintners see northern California wine grapes becoming more like their cousins in the dry, hot Central Valley: abundant yields producing wines lacking nuance, usually blended into inexpensive bulk-produced wines. Northwest climate is becoming what California was, growing premium wine grapes that are now thriving further north.

Coming Soon: Robo-Air Taxis

Amazon is threatening to fill the skies with drone aircraft delivering urgent packages to doorstops. UPS has begun making deliveries to hospitals of drugs or other items that really are, in fact, urgent. What’s next, drone taxicabs?

Of course, the answer is Yes, drone taxis.