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Wait, Kramer Drove an Experimental Chevrolet on “Seinfeld”?
It’s no secret that Jerry Seinfeld is a car enthusiast. In fact, his namesake television show includes numerous nods to his automotive interests: Jerry’s fridge features a Skip Barber Racing School magnet; posters of Porsches line the walls of his apartment; and Kramer, Jerry’s across-the-hall neighbor, drives an experimental 1973 Chevrolet Impala. Yes, Kramer’s green Impala—the car that famously dons the license plate “ASSMAN” in the Seinfeld episode “The Fusilli Jerry“—is no ordinary Chevy, but one of 1,000 1973 Impalas that General Motors furnished with an experimental front airbag system dubbed the Air Cushion Restraint System (ACRS). How do we know? Well, take a look at the car’s interior in episodes such as “The Race” ...
Is Technology Africa’s Biggest Undiscovered Gold Mine?
Technology has the potential to fundamentally transform societies. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and broadband are becoming central to the societal developments around the world – enabling rapid improvements to industrial production and societal services, positively influencing the way we live and interact with our environment. Africa is home to over a billion people and the population is expected to grow in the coming years. It is projected to grow from 17% in 2020 to 26% in 2050 and 39% by 2100 of the global population while the share of Asia will fall from 59% in 2020 to 55% in 2050 and 43% in 2100. It is also a continent with the most growing economies and many from a low base; 9 of the 20 fastest growing in 2020 according to the IMF with rates above 6% of GDP (not ad...
What Is a Targa? A Very Brief History of an Automotive Staple
In the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, the automotive landscape was awash with targa-top cars. Conventional convertibles required heavy mechanisms (or worse, motors or hydraulics) to work and got rid of a major structural component—ya know, the roof. That in turn sapped performance from sports cars by making them less rigid, heavier, and slower. There were also very real fears among automakers that the U.S. government would ban convertibles in the name of rollover safety in the late ’60s—even though that never happened, the automakers freaked. In fact, there were zero American convertibles built from 1976 to 1981. A solution for all of these problems was to ditch the folding fabric roof of a convertible altogether and replace it with a removable panel mounted to a sturdy roll hoop...
The 50 Best Songs of 2020 (So Far)
Great songs have a freedom that albums don’t because great songs only have to pull off their trick once. It’s like how a great SNL sketch can be a terrible movie or why Vine was an underrated miracle of online comedy. Sometimes an artist can get a lot more done in miniature. When people say that no one listens to albums anymore, they’re obviously mistaken, but they mean that no one listens to certain kinds of albums anymore. They won’t wait to get to the good part, and an industry that’s been padding out their wares for decades has had to adapt to a new reality where the customer is always dope. From Hailey Whitters to Hayley Williams, from King Von to Christine and the Queens, here’s a supercut of just the good parts: The songs that have challenged and delighted and comforted us through a...
Mer de Noms at 20: Musicians Celebrate A Perfect Circle’s Debut
At first, Tool fans were kinda bummed. Word of a Maynard James Keenan side project — while appealing on paper — was met with apprehension and dismay, as it threatened to further delay the studio sessions for the follow-up to Ænima, which they’d already been impatiently waiting years for. When the album finally hit record store shelves on May 23, 2000, those fans weren’t skeptical anymore. As they’d learn fast, A Perfect Circle was no Tool clone. The music was largely written before Keenan ever became involved. Guitarist Billy Howerdel, the creative strength behind the avant-rock outfit, was a former guitar technician who’d worked for Nine Inch Nails and Faith No More. He became friends with Keenan in 1992 after meeting on tour; Tool were opening for Fishbone, who Howerdel was working for. ...
American Psycho: Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP at 20
“I am forever chasing The Marshall Mathers LP. That was the height of what I could do. I just don’t have the rage I did back then.”– Eminem, 2017 Vulture interview “It sounded like something Stephen King would write. It sounded like a horror movie.” – Jimmy Iovine, VH1’s Ultimate Albums – Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP Jan. 20, 2001. The Barker Hangar. Santa Monica, CA. 2.5 miles from the Interscope Records office. He emerges wearing denim overalls and wielding a chainsaw. Chemically blonde hair meets the top of a hockey mask. Behind him on stage, an ersatz brick bungalow modeled after an equally weathered home somewhere between 8 Mile and 7 Mile roads in Detroit. The chainsaw blade is inert, but a recording of violent revving plays as sparks shoot skyward from the stage. When...
Molto Bello: A Visual History of Alfa Romeo’s Iconic Triangular “Trefoil” Grille
You probably know that quadrifoglio means four-leaf clover, and that when said good-luck charm appears on the flanks of an Alfa Romeo, it recalls the brand’s motorsports heritage and portends dynamic brilliance. But did you know Alfa refers to its trademark three-element grille design as a “trefoil,” which essentially means three-leaf clover? Let’s take a historic look back at what is probably the next most iconic grille after BMW‘s twin kidneys. See all 10 photos 1947 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Freccia D’Oro The classic trefoil design featuring the central three-sided shield as we know it today first appeared on the newly designed postwar 6C 2500 cars that integrated the front fenders with the grille surround. Cars like the Freccia D’Oro (“golden ar...
The 30 Best Albums of 2020 (So Far)
On one hand, who can think about stuff as trivial as this? On the other, what else is there to do? If art was made to fill a cultural vacuum, well… now’s the fucking time, buddy. Hopefully, you’ve been binging every show, reading every book, repainting every bathroom you’ve been putting off. Hopefully, when (and if) we make it out of quarantine alive, we’ll be able to look forward to better things. For now, we still have music. Some of the great albums and EPs below demand your full and undivided attention. Some of them demand to intensify your workout or gaming session. Mostly they just sound good, and you should pair them with whatever activities music enhances for you. Even sleep; lord knows that could be improved upon. Others will keep you wide awake. If any of these albums make you th...
How to Adapt your Marketing Strategy for the COVID Era
Good marketing relies on a thorough understanding of your target market, but when much of what you knew about your customers is suddenly no longer relevant, a major shift is needed. With the onset of the coronavirus, almost every aspect of what was considered typical daily life was upended literally overnight – people confined to their homes, anxious about the future and their financial security. “The most important question you should be asking is: ‘How best can I connect with my customers during a crisis?’” says Gavin Knox-Grant, marketing guru and director of Karbon Media. “It’s not only during the pandemic that business will be different,” says Knox-Grant, “the way in which we all conduct business will be forever changed.” /* custom css */ .tdi_3_556.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.t...
GM’s “Ultra Cruise” Aims to Take on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Option
The future for General Motors includes hands-free driving everywhere, a top executive said in regards to company plans to expand the capabilities of its Super Cruise system. The hands-free driving feature currently works on pre-mapped highways. Taking hands-free driving to the streets is the next logical evolution of the technology and GM has a big team working on it. The setup is referred to as Ultra Cruise, was formally announced by GM’s Doug Parks at the Citi 2020 Car of the Future Symposium. “Ultra Cruise’s domain would essentially be all driving, all the time,” Parks said. “Ultra Cruise would be all [that] Super Cruise [offers], plus neighborhoods, cities, subdivisions.” Unfortunately, Parks was light on details, such as when Ultra Cruise will reach...
Spacehog’s Antony Langdon Would Do It All Over Again
When Spacehog guitarist Antony Langdon was 22 and working at a production company, which included a day spent frothing beer for a Stella Artois commercial, he never envisioned his path — including stints as a bicycle messenger and cutting up melons for models as a fashion photographer assistant — would include playing in an of-the-moment rock band. Langdon formed Spacehog in 1994 after he and his younger brother Royston both moved to New York City from their hometown Leeds, U.K.. With Antony on guitar and Royston on vocals/bass (along with drummer Jonny Cragg and guitarist Richard Steel), Spacehog shot to fame almost instantly on the strength of their first single, “In the Meantime.” The undeniably catchy tune (which sampled Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s “Telephone and Rubbe...
The 6 Best Free Microsoft Office Alternatives
Sourced from Getty Images. While Microsoft Office is still the vastly popular and ubiquitous choice for word processing, slideshow presentations, spreadsheet calculations and a bounty of many more digital tasks, steep subscription costs can lead to some users turning instead to ad-riddled freeware or ‘free’ apps that lock most of their features behind hidden paywalls. If this sounds like you, then fear not! There are many good and usable free alternatives to Microsoft Office. No subscription required. According to How-To Geek, these are the 6 best free app suites for all your productivity needs: 1. LibreOffice /* custom css */ .tdi_3_8ec.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_8ec.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Like the best free software, LibreOffice is an open-source project fro...
