Stones Throw Podcast 55 – Where’s Stoney? (Opens in iTunes)

House Shoes & J.Rocc put together a collection of Strong Arm Steady & Madlib tracks on the eve of the release date for their album In Search of Stoney Jackson.  Some of these songs are off the album, others are not. Strong Arm hosts the mix.

The BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept powertrain provides a top speed limited electronically to 155 mph, 100 km/h in 4.8 seconds. Engine output of 163 hp with peak torque of 214 lb-ft. Average fuel consumption in the EU test cycle is 3.76 liters/100 kilometers, equal to 62.6 mpg. BMW plans to get “M” (Motorsport) performance out of the plug-in hybrid system which works together with a 3-cyl turbo-diesel engine able to charge the battery as you drive.

I guess it wont come cheap but it sounds impressive and it looks wicked. Not sure how well the battery will hold up in the cold either if my cellphone when skiing is anything to go by!

More info in the vid below the fold:

A continuing cold snap across parts of Europe over the weekend and into Monday caused the deaths of more than 40 people in Romania, Bulgaria and Poland. It’s a cold spell that also stretched across much of Germany, leaving people here shivering as temperatures plunged as low as -15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) early on Monday morning.

This January has been colder than usual in Germany — at least 1.5 degrees Celsius lower than average according to the German Weather Service (DWD). Sunshine has also been unusually sparse. Although winter has already passed the half-way mark, Germans have enjoyed only 40 percent of the sunlight that is normal for January.

Germany’s cold spell, however, has been minor compared to temperatures being experienced in Eastern Europe. A government spokesperson in Bucharest reported that ice cold temperatures of -34 degrees Celsius caused the deaths of 11 people in Romania in just 24 hours, with a total of 22 deaths registered in the last five days as a result of the cold.

More here…

The economy aint looking so hot either, although one country in the EU did grow it’s economy last year, the only one to do so in fact, and the Eurozone winner is….. Poland!

A colleague of mine at kiska found this car a few years ago and after a small photoshoot we got to talking about it’s history.

Despite looking like a wreck, this is one of the most desired classic 911′s amongst collectors because it’s a ’72 2.4S, which was the only year with the oil filler cap on the right rear quarter panel.
The story behind it’s demise and rediscovery is a bit of a mystery. In 1976 it was put in a barn with only 48k KM on it. It was left there until 1986 at which point it was moved outside. Soon after this a tree fell on it and crushed it. My colleague found the car in Milan in 2008 in a terrible state along with the passport of this mysterious girl still in the glove box. The girl who owned it was only 18 when she got it and nobody knows what happened to her or why she hid the car away in the garage.

Hey, all of that borrowed money has to go somewhere right? Not fair that it ALL goes to the banks. Finally some change you can believe in!

Let nobody say American manufacturing is dead.

The supercross season this year kicked off with even more drama than usual with the two main contenders colliding and both injuring themselves, Stewart scrubbing under Partridge and getting landed on and some new names in the 450 class battling for the top spots. You can catch news of all the action here, and if you want to watch the races, for those of us living outside of America you can find torrents of the races here.

Daron Rahlves ripping some of the most impressive lines I ever seen. BIG mountains. I stuck it below the fold because it was autoplaying and MSP put no controls on it… Sick vid MSP, but it would be better to put it on Vimeo too.

Never been before and it’s only an hour and 20mins away. Looks like a pretty cool spot so we are heading over to check it out tomorrow.

Yes, yes! Hmm, seems there is the biggest downhill event of the year there this weekend, on to plan B.

From the book Euclids elements, circa 300 BC, arguably the most important textbook ever written.

1. Things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another.
2. If equals be added to equals, the wholes are equal.
3. If equals be subtracted from equals, the remainders are equal.
4. Things which coincide with one another are equal to one another.
5. The whole is greater than the part.

Talk about invasion of privacy! These pictures are even a little blurry, some others I have seen are literally like photos of you naked. Now to be used on all flights from Amsterdam to America. There is apparently only a low radiation risk and you are UNLIKELY (!!!) to get cancer. So I guess that’s ok then.

Er, wait, no it’s bloody not! Parallels with much of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four come to mind.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (also 1984), by George Orwell, published in 1949, is a dystopian novel about the totalitarian regime of the Party, an oligarchical collectivist society where life in the Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, public mind control, and the voiding of citizens’ rights.

From the same novel, this also sounds familiar:

In the telescreens, figures for all types of production are grossly exaggerated (or simply invented) to indicate an ever-growing economy where there is actually loss.

Smooth

Blimey, the speed of this is quite astounding when you watch it animated, especially considering the actual unemployment/underemployed numbers are supposedly more than double those in this animation. I wish it were otherwise, but Europe seems to be doing just as badly.

On Jan. 15th, a burst of Northern Lights startled observers around the Arctic Circle. “The sky exploded over my head!” reports Øystein Lunde Ingvaldsen, who sends this picture from Bø in Vesterålen, Norway:

A solar wind stream is heading toward Earth and it could spark polar geomagnetic storms when it arrives on Jan. 18th or 19th.
Via Spaceweather..

We went to Sportgastein hoping for some powder but it was totally blown out. Ended up just cruising the pistes which was pretty fun anyway as the weather was amazing.

the pistes were hard so you picked up mad speed.

one and only attempt offpiste.

PTSP 180 horse shadow

Benny making something from nothing

Wohoo, lunchtime!