fun

Captain Obvious: No Self Driving Ferrari Per The Company

/ John / Leave a comment

Why would you want to ride in a Ferrari when you can command such a beast around the roads? It would be like having the most beautiful girl in the world and not sleep with her.

At least the company headquartered in Maranello announced they won’t pollute the sanctity of their driving machines with this feature.

They caved to e-fuels, but the essence of the prancing horse will stay intact.

Story:

Self-driving Ferraris are not for us, Ferrari chief executive Ferrari Benedetto Vigna said Monday. “Lifestyle business is immportant for us,” Vigna said. “It allows us to expand links with our community.”

Vigna also welcomed plans to exempt cars that run on e-fuels from the European Union’s planned 2035 phase-out of new combustion engine vehicles as they will give the luxury carmaker “greater freedom” on its power systems.

COMBUSTION ENGINE EXCEPTION

The European Union and Germany have reached a deal allowing new cars powered by combustion engines (ICE) to be sold beyond the 2035 deadline, or 2036 for so-called small volume manufacturers like Ferrari, if they run on carbon-neutral e-fuels.

“The good news for us as a company is that on top of electric cars, we’ll also be able to go on with our internal combustion engines ones,” Vigna told a Reuters Newsmaker event.

“This decision is very interesting for us because it allows ICEs to go beyond 2036,” he added.

Ferrari, which is renowned for its powerful petrol engines, is already producing plug-in hybrid cars and has promised its first full-electric vehicle for 2025.

However, Ferrari, which sold over 13,200 cars in 2022, has never provided a roadmap for going all electric.

Presenting its new business plan last year, Ferrari said fully electric and hybrid models would make up 80% of those in its range by 2030, while 20% would still be powered by internal combustion engines.

“This does not change,” Vigna said. “We don’t want to tell clients which car to use. We want to make three kinds of propulsion available for them – hybrid, electric and ICE – and they will chose.”

SPENDING UNCHANGED

Vigna reassured investors that the company’s investment plans would not be affected by combustion engines getting an extended life, as Ferrari had already “embedded” this scenario in its business plan.

“The figure I gave (last year) – 4.4 billion euros ($4.7 billion) for capex in the 2022-2026 period – it’s enough for us to go ahead with electrification and also with ICEs which are compatible with e-fuels,” he said.

Vigna said Ferrari’s upcoming electric model would be “a unique car” but would not be drawn on details, adding that “keeping secret is part of the recipe.”

He added it was wrong to assume that specific forms of propulsion would match specific models in the future. Fuels are a mean to provide the performance expected from a Ferrari car, he said.

He said that the price of e-fuels, or synthetic fuels, was likely to come down as they are developed in coming years.

“They’re a new technology, and like for all new technologies they have time to become cheaper,” he said. ($1 = 0.9279 euros)

The Real Difference Between Men And Women

/ John / Leave a comment

My friend Joel Hagberg told me about this. With all the crap news going on, here’s a little (a lot of) humor.

In the current day when we have a Supreme Court Justice who can’t define what a woman is until there is a man involved, I have an easy test.

Here is the answer. Men think the 3 Stooges are funny. Yes, we can watch it and die laughing. Girls don’t get why we think it’s so funny.

Here’s a clip to make it easy. Separate 2 eggs is completely different for males and females, click to find out.

I for one find it hilarious.

LinkedIn Cringe And Sh*tposting

/ John / Leave a comment

For people trying to get a job or increase business, it might be a valuable platform.

Unfortunately, it is still social media that is trying to be politically correct. I ran across this article so that you get a feel for what Cringe is.

Why LinkedIn? Just, why?

One of the funniest running jokes on Twitter is people trolling cringey LinkedIn newsfeed content: humble brags, faux inspiration, hustle porn, buzzwords galore and more.

A Twitter search for “linkedin cringe” returns an endless scroll of hilarity: 

Here’s a representative tweet that blew up last week. Someone posted a photo of a “resilient” tree, which prompted a perfect response that notched 430k+ likes: “Gonna be hell when LinkedIn finds out about this tree.”

What is in the DNA of LinkedIn that leads to such predictably cringe content?

To answer the question, I read a bunch of forums, articles and great insights from the LinkedIn Engineering Blog. I think the cringe is due to 3 factors:

  • The personality: What LinkedIn asks you to be?
  • The customer: Who is actually paying LinkedIn?
  • The algorithm: What drives engagement?

The Personality

My least favorite version of Trung is “CV Trung”. By this, I mean the way I write about myself and career on my resume.

Why? Because CV Trung is a knob.

Here are some actual bullet points from my most up-to-date resume, circa 2019: (comments in bold)

  • “CFA Charter-holder, passed all 3 exams on the first attempt” (no one cares)
  • “Professional working proficiency in Vietnamese” (not even close)
  • “Leveraged background in finance to lead a cross-functional team that developed machine-learning analytics tools” (dude, STFU)

Humans don’t talk like this. Half of this isn’t even true!

What is going on?

Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman has the answer: in a book called The Presentation of Self in Every Day Life, Goffman posits that every person goes through life wearing many “masks”, like an actor in a theater play.

Most people are different personalities at work vs. home vs. happy hour. People wear these different masks to impress or avoid embarrassment with different audiences.

Back to LinkedIn. It’s your online resume and directly tied to your identity.

The setup forces everyone on the site to basically wear the professional “CV mask” of their personality.

Bland. Buzzwords. Inoffensive. A little exaggeration. Self-promotional (but not too much). Desperate to impress.

CV Trung if I could grow facial hair (via @StateOfLinkedIn)

As a professional social network, LinkedIn has the cringe built in. The platform also prompts cringey engagement activity like:

  • Please <click button> to endorse <person> for being good at <skill>
  • It is <person> one year workversary please <congratulate>

This is not how normal people interact! I’ve literally never uttered the words “workvesary” out of my mouth (and have no idea what it sounds like).

Case in point:

Via @PanchamShreyas

Whenever someone strays from the “CV Mask” and gives an honest take, it resonates:

(L to R, clockwise): An honest consultant, my “education” section and Conan O’Brien’s very funny “test score”

Having said all that, LinkedIn’s mission is to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful”. As we’ll see, the site has been able to do that for many of its 800m+ users…cringe or no cringe.

MY RESPONSE AND TROLL

I already troll LinkedIn by changing my profile. My college went woke. I am so ashamed of them for what they represent that I changed it to Faber, of Animal House fame. No one noticed, but I don’t get any college links anymore, so there is the silver lining.

I decided to engage in the cringe by posting a false invention to detect both that and Sh*t posts. There already is an app that does this, so I made up my own. It’s just cringe stuff that is deep in sarcasm for those who troll my page and try to market unwanted advice to me. It’s working well as I’m being left alone. I haven’t done what my career was for years anyway.

Here’s a sample: Helped change the course of the future with the invention of the Revalvitating Capitulator. A vital component in the development and distribution of LinkedIn cringe.

I even used the cringe generator and got this:

And a special shout out to Alex Cohen, who has turned long-form LinkedIn shitposting into an art:

In the end, it’s just another social media fail, but at least there is fun in it for those who recognize sarcasm. I troll it now in my profile because it went woke a while ago. I don’t even bother posting or liking except to very few people that I had a real connection with in the past.

Like most of Social Media, it’s a time suck. Cringe beats woke every time.

Because Who Wants An Electric Porsche 911 Or Ferrari?

/ John / Leave a comment

I find this interesting because part of the thrill of one of these ultimate driving machines is the sensory overload. The sounds and smells are as much a part of the thrill as is the rush of being pushed back into the seat when you push down the loud pedal (accelerator for the under educated).

I’ve been to races for 6 decades now. You can smell the exhaust, tires and hear it before you get to the track. You don’t get that from a station wagon or an SUV.

Even if I lost my vision, I’d only not be able to see how sleek and fast they look. My other senses would say it’s a real car.

Fortunately, even though it is ridiculous E-Fuels, at least they aren’t going to plug in a 911.

I still open the window of my car just to hear them drive away.

Story:

With many automakers transitioning from petrol-powered vehicles to electrified ones, Porsche and Ferrari are pursuing a new strategy by concentrating on the advancement of eFuels to preserve gas-powered engines. This decision follows the European Commission’s delay last week of the proposed 2035 ban on new internal combustion engine vehicles as the commission prepares to carve out a role for eFuels after 2035.

“Porsche and Ferrari’s status as national icons was enough to move their governments to challenge the EU plan last week just days before a scheduled vote,” Bloomberg wrote. 

Germany’s Transport Minister Volker Wissing told the European Commission that he would withhold support for the approval of the new engine standards to end the sale of new combustion engine cars unless there were a plan for eFuels post-2035. Italy also threatened to fight the reforms.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday, discussing a comprise that would likely involve eFuels. 

Germany and Italy are home to the world’s top sportscar manufacturers. There has been growing opposition against Brussels’ plan to ban petrol-powered engines. That’s because who in their right mind would purchase an all-electric Porsche 911? 

The alternative route, mainly for sportscar brands, is the development of eFuels as a climate-neutral way to preserve combustion engines—just something about the sound of a twin-turbo V-8 or V-6 that captivates motorheads.

While most carmakers are pouring tens of billions into the EV shift, Porsche has also invested in an e-fuel plant in Chile, partly because the manufacturer doesn’t plan to make its 911 sports car with a plug. Operating combustion-engine vehicles in a climate-neutral way could also help speed up the decarbonization of the transport sector, according to a Porsche spokesman. Existing vehicle stock should be included in the push to lower CO2 emissions faster, he added. Ferrari has said it’s pursuing alternative fuels to keep making combustion-engine cars that preserve its heritage.

Proponents of e-fuels, say they’re essentially renewable electricity that’s been converted into a combustible, liquid fuel. To make it, scientists combine captured carbon dioxide with hydrogen that was split from water in a process powered by renewable energy, creating a synthetic hydrocarbon fuel. When burned in a combustion engine, the e-fuels create carbon dioxide. But since it was made from previously captured CO2, they argue it’s climate neutral.

We’ve outlined the growing resistance among vehicle brands and motorsport organizations that are firm in their belief the combustion engine will be sticking around for years to come. 

Gilligan’s Island, The Epitaph

/ John / Leave a comment

It was a good TV show when I was a kid. My Mom dreaded that I watched such nonsense and that it would certainly ruin me. I didn’t get any smarter by watching the show. It provided me with clean entertainment as compared to the woke TV the kids get now.

There were some things that didn’t make sense.

The professor could charge batteries for their radio by stirring coconuts, but couldn’t fix the Minnow?

Finally, my answer. It was Ginger, My how things have changed…

She’s the only one of the cast left

More Introvert Strategies For Escaping When You Have To

/ John / Leave a comment

If I can’t get out of going to a social event (forget parties), this is my next best option.

I’ve done it on dates also.

I hit on a girl in one of my classes in college because she was kind of cute and noticeably large casaba’s. To this day, it was the most boring date of my life. I thought she didn’t like me, but I found out she was just uninteresting. We went to dinner where I thought we could at least talk about the class we just finished.

She appeared in the school magazine 40 years later doing turtle research and guess what? She never got married. Others must have found out what I did.

I didn’t take her for being a switch hitter, so she just didn’t try. I can’t even call her an introvert as I saw her talk in class for a whole semester.

I didn’t have a hard time carrying on back then as those were my drinking years. I tried to keep it going and had other plans (dancing I believe) later that night but took her home. It was going nowhere and I was tired of trying. I dated a lot and was in my prime so a lot of others at least did their part in trying to keep it going.

After going home, I went out with my friends to a bar later to brag that I got out of one of the worst dates of my life.

Now, I don’t drink anymore and I get out of banal socializing as often as I can before it happens. I like this method best.

By chance I have to go, I know where the bathroom is and play with the pets.

Still, leaving is usually my favorite part of going to these.

What Happens To Guys When It Gets Cold

/ John / Leave a comment

Double bonus here, it makes fun of vegetarians. No one is buying Beyond Meats as their stock is falling. I guess it tastes like it looks.

Even the companies don’t know if their meat is safe to eat

Lab-grown meat is often made using immortalized cell lines, which, unlike regular cells, are capable of continuously dividing and growing in a manner similar to cancer cells, according to Bloomberg. Companies developing lab-grown meats have largely remained silent about the connection between their product and cancer cells, possibly in a bid to keep consumers from getting skittish about their products.

Dick Jokes, If Told By A Girl

/ John / Leave a comment

I bet she’d want to write her name in the snow and on the wall too.

As for me, I can’t get them to fit as the hole is too small, but I imagine I could fit a dozen or so (only if I smashed them flat together)

This is how it is being a man. It’s much more than donuts. We hang towels also.

And this is how we do it, and stuff all guys know.

but first, you have to know the guy rules we knew when we were born

My Childish Humor Strikes Again

/ John / Leave a comment

Oh yes, I could say it with a straight face, depending on the other person. I just texted my friend George that there were a lot of balls to juggle, instead balls in the air.

I still call them wiener’s if there is a chance the other person will feel uncomfortable.

Hat tip to wirecutter on this one. It was too good to not share.

Happy World Introvert Day

/ John / Leave a comment

May we celebrate together, but alone and separately. Talk to you tomorrow because I’m not talking today.

It’s my favorite holiday after just suffering through Christmas and New Years. I can be alone today. Somewhere out there (although probably quiet) my fellow souls finally have some joy. It’s doubtful others will hear about it as we don’t boast, and other times you can’t get a word in edge wise for all the yapping.

I know and so do others.

PS, I’m not an INFJ.

This next one is me. I’m always in the back, next to the door so I can leave if I need to escape or panic

I Like This Dick Measuring Contest

/ John / Leave a comment

Because that is what it is. It’s like the longest drive, fastest car, number of wins your team got, name it.

There are some that are hard to top. They are conversation stoppers, also one of my favorites.

I won’t compare it to my schools because I put as much distance as I can from both my high school and college, both school and people. Those people would lose every time to the non-woke army.

If it weren’t for the Nazi thing, this would be the ultimate dick measuring contest for a school. Based on my work experience, I’ve noted how overrated the Ivy League schools are, and you can include others like UNC-CH, Duke and most California schools. They turn out losers now that are more concerned about gender and race than history and education.

Still, if it came down to it and someone started giving me the Harvard or Notre Dame speech. I’d like to say I’m from the Panzer School and we’d blow your doors off, literally. That’s a show stopper.

It’s like someone bragging they play golf and you answer, Hi, I’m Tiger Woods.

When They Become Cannibals

/ John / Leave a comment

I knew an Italian Dr with a bag and shoe fetish that only a Dr.’s salary could support. She said it was an addiction. I say it’s a waste of money.

It is for girls to show off to other girls. Guys don’t care about the bags, necklaces, rings or makeup.

She spent 10’s of thousands for other girls I guess. Other than being a good Dr, even her sister said her life was effed up.

Competitive Eating Update, When Joey Chestnut Sharted His Pants

/ John / Leave a comment

Nathan’s hot dog eating contest has been one of my favorite sports for years, since Kobayashi was king. My wife thinks it is one of the grossest competitions ever held, adding to my enjoyment.

I heard an interview with Joey Chestnut about taking a dump the next day after downing 70 hot dogs. I’ve wondered about that also.

What I didn’t know was that he’s done it while competing. Gross I know, but it didn’t stand in the way of him winning.

At least he’s honest about it.

When A Bass Boat Becomes A Student Loan

/ John / Leave a comment

I’ve had 2 of them. I fished with guys who had a bigger loan on their boat than their mortgage. I paid for mine on a credit card I recall to get frequent flyer points.

Everything you hear about owning a boat is pretty much true. Best/Worst day, hole in the water where you dump your money and so forth.

It was fun, but I didn’t see how those guys could afford it, but here you go.

Nose Hair Extensions, They’ve Taken It Too Far This Time

/ John / 1 Comment

Several beauty bloggers have taken to Instagram to post whether this was a trend to stay or a trend to say nay to.

And it’s not just one beauty blogger either, it’s several…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BadLJYHn1QC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Yeah, I don’t think this one is for me, or will be a fad that takes off, but click the link to see the reactions.

I Might Watch SNL For The First Time In Years

/ John / Leave a comment

The snowflake SJW woke little crybabies in NY are so hurt by words that they won’t support one of the best comedians since Richard Pryor.

People that won’t do their jobs should be fired. Then hire un-woke funny writers.

I can’t take the woke crap and Trump bashing. If it were funny, I’d watch like I used to.

With these children gone for a week and Chapelle hosting, it has a chance of being good tonight.

For the rest of the staff, work or be fired.