Thursday, March 23, 2023

Right there. In the slack water behind that rock.

 


At the end of the ten hour shift

 


Speaking of big heads...

 


Clarity

 


Sculptural

 


For when you really, really need to wake up

 



 

Slippery

 


 


That's why is feels so heavy!

 


The Dream

 


Friends

 


Glub Glub

 


From the era when Cadillacs were really Cadillacs.

 


Wednesday, March 22, 2023

 


Espalier

 


Long Load

 


Gotta like that hood ornament

 


Beautiful

 


Hadda Hurt

 


Hard Aground

 


 


Dream Water

 


Skol

 




That's one giant trout

 


Fresh Meat's Back On The Menu, Boys!

 


Catastrophe Porn

 


No human could drink all that

 


Hooved power

 


Raquel, or would that be her cavewoman name, Uugh--tzee?

 


The Loyal Friend

 


Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Classic

 


Nice

 


Valuable Spread of Meat

 


Good Dog

 


Didn't know he wrote a book

 


Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds


Tuesday Morning Smile

 


Italian

 








Heh

 


Gotta love the mustache

 


Breakfast for Badgers

 


On the prowl

 


Another downside to electric cars.

 

The electric vehicle revolution might not be as environmentally friendly as automakers claim. Furthermore, a scratched or slightly damaged battery pack could lead insurance companies to scrap the entire car.

"We're buying electric cars for sustainability reasons," Matthew Avery, research director at automotive risk intelligence company Thatcham Research, said. 

Avery pointed out, "an EV isn't very sustainable if you've got to throw the battery away after a minor collision." 

A Tesla battery pack costs tens of thousands of dollars and represents a large percentage of the vehicle's price tag. Insurance companies have found that it's uneconomical to replace battery packs if damaged. 

Plus, dangerous.  Slight damage to the battery pack could significantly increase the risk of a catastrophic fire, which is already a real risk with undamaged electric cars.

Many automotive manufacturers, including Tesla, have made battery packs a structural part of the car to reduce cost products but have shifted costs to consumers and insurers when batteries need to be replaced. 

Unless carmakers produce more easily repairable battery packs, there will be a growing number of low-mileage EVs scrapped after collisions.

"The number of cases is going to increase, so the handling of batteries is a crucial point," said Christoph Lauterwasser, managing director of the Allianz Center for Technology, a research institute owned by Allianz. 

According to Lauterwasser, the production of EV batteries results in significantly higher CO2 emissions compared to conventional fossil-fuel models. Therefore, if these batteries are discarded with low mileage, it undermines the goal of promoting environmentally-friendly practices.

"If you throw away the vehicle at an early stage, you've lost pretty much all advantage in terms of CO2 emissions," he said.

Sandy Munro, head of Michigan-based Munro & Associates, which analyzes vehicles and advises automakers on how to improve them, said the Model Y battery pack has "zero repairability."

"A Tesla structural battery pack is going straight to the grinder," Munro said.

So much for the EV revolution and the green "circular economy" touted by carmakers, politicians, NGOs, and climate activists... These EVs appear even worse for the environment when compared with traditional petrol-powered vehicles.

UPS delivery driver Juan Hernandez delivers a package to a snow-covered home in Truckee, Calif., on March 3, 2023.

 


Meanwhile, on the eastern side of the Sierra...

In late February, a series of avalanches buried half a mile of U.S. Route 395 on the

eastern side of California's Sierra Nevada under 30 to 40 feet of snow and debris.

Three weeks and another atmospheric river later, a portion of the highway near Mono

Lake is still closed, with no solid estimation as to when it'll reopen. 


The full extent of the damage the avalanches caused to U.S. 395 won't be known until snow and debris have been cleared, which could take weeks, Caltrans District 9 wrote in an update posted to Facebook. The avalanches that struck the hillsides above the highway between Lee Vining and State Route 167 are expected to have carried rocks, trees, guardrails, fencing and pieces of road along with heavy amounts of snow and ice, guaranteeing that future debris removal will be a lengthy process. 


Meanwhile, the closure has cut off the small communities of Lee Vining and Mono City from each other. What was once a short commute between the nearby towns is now a four-hour drive through Nevada, and many people in the area are now unable to attend school, go to work or visit family members, according to the Mono Lake Committee.  Further north, an avalanche on March 12 near Walker Canyon briefly closed US 395 from the Sonora Junction to the town of Walker, effectively forcing the nearby town of Bridgeport into isolation. 

Caltrans announced on Tuesday that more mitigation efforts need to be performed before work to clear the highway can continue. It will be at least two weeks after that work starts before U.S. 395 can reopen in any capacity, Caltrans said.

Mono Lake will probably gain a lot of water this spring, and that's good.




Storm opens up crater-sized yawning gap in Sierra National Forest road near Yosemite

 


An estimated 25- to 30-foot-deep hole has opened up in the middle of Beasore Road just north of Bass Lake, near Yosemite Forks.

And yeah, that hole would eat up your Subaru, all wheel drive or not.