FROM NEW ZEALAND BY TRUCK

The Undie 500 – from the
pages of Highway America

For the next two days the journey continued through beautiful Appalachian country to Elkton, Maryland, and a Petro truckstop a little over an hour from the drop-off. I parked on the end of a long line of trucks, went for dinner and came back to read a book while music filled the air from the truck radio. When it was time for bed I pulled the blinds around the windscreen and side windows and stripped off to my underpants.

Suddenly there was a loud bang and the truck rocked on its suspension. Earthquake, I immediately thought. Then I heard a scraping noise as a semi trailer was dragged around the front of my tractor. I ripped the blinds open in time to see the culprit drive slowly away looking for a parking space. With visions of Carlos having me fired for having yet another accident I leapt down to the pavement in my bare feet and underpants and ran after the errant driver.

My Undie 500 lasted barely a hundred yards by which time the turban-headed young driver was most apologetic. It was his first day on the road and he was still getting accustomed to the size of the rig and the amount of space needed to turn. In Maryland the police are required to attend all accidents involving trucks and we exchanged details while we waited for them. An hour later an officer arrived, looked at both trucks (I had my clothes on again by then), took our details and departed.

My encounter with the police was better than that of a CalArk driver called Mike. When he got lost in Chicago he stopped a cop and asked for directions.

‘Follow me,’ the cop said obligingly.

They twisted and turned through narrow streets and alleyways for what seemed an age until they finally arrived at a police station where Mike was fined $990 for driving on streets where trucks were prohibited.

As the traffic flow pushed Old Bluey (my truck) along the New Jersey Turnpike at sixty-five miles an hour I watched the big signs flash passed overhead; Willingboro, Trenton, East Brunswick, Sayreville. The number of lanes increased along with the traffic volume and the number of interchanges. I was getting close to the turnpike extension and I needed to stay alert. The Perth Amboy sign flashed by and Carteret, Linden and Elizabeth appeared quickly. The exit for Newark Liberty International Airport slipped by and I changed lanes to line up for the turnpike extension at Exit 14. Suddenly just a few yards away parallel to the turnpike a big jet was taking off from Runway 4 Right at Newark while others waited to line up and the sky around buzzed with jets circling to land.

I looked ahead for the Jersey City sign as thousands of cars and trucks sped towards the heart of the great New York metropolis like minnows into the jaws of a whale. I lined up beneath the sign and followed the ramp through a ninety degree right turn. The Manhattan skyline, the Twin Towers and the Statue of Liberty came into view across the Hudson River as I looked ahead for Exit 14A. I shifted right again trying to recall the precise directions. I needed to go to the toll gates and up another ramp to Route 169 South and turn onto New Hook Road at the second light and proceed to Avenue J and the Exxon plant.

After carefully making all the correct turns to connect with Route 169 South I was dismayed to be confronted with a sign indicating that I was on Route 440 instead. Where the hell did that come from? I asked myself as I slowed and looked for somewhere to park while seeking assistance from the locals. There was a gap between the two carriageways but no free space on the sides so I stopped on the median and ran across the opposite carriageway to an office building that seemed to be just inches from the traffic flow.

‘I’m looking for New Hook Road,’ I told one of the workers.

‘Just keep right on down the one-sixty-nine. It’s about a mile on the left.’

‘How do I get to the one-sixty-nine?’

He looked at me as though I really was the dummy that I was beginning to feel like. Then he looked across at my idling truck in the middle of the busy dual carriageway and back at me again.

‘You’re on the one-sixty-nine, buddy. Are you Australian?’

‘No. I’m a Kiwi from New Zealand.’

He looked at me again as his expression changed to one of incredibility.

‘You come all the way from New Zealand in a truck?’

‘Not quite,’ I replied pointing to a jetliner blasting across the heavens from Newark. ‘I came on one of those. I picked up the truck in Little Rock.’

‘Little Rock, Arkansas.’ He still seemed uncertain about whether to believe me. ‘You know Bill Clinton?’

For a moment I was stunned by the thought that Little Rock could be thought of as so little that everyone living there could be a personal friend of everyone else including the former Governor and President.

‘Well, no. I guess I’m one of the few people who have never actually met him. But thanks for your help, mate. I think I’d better move my truck.’

For an e-book copy of Peter Blakeborough's Highway America go to: Smashwords.com 

 

KEYBOARD VANDALS

The 10 golden rules of
Twitter – and Facebook

David Aaronovitch

No week seems to pass without some tweeter or other having their handle felt by officers of the law. So if you don’t want to be one of them but you do want to communicate in 140 characters, here are my 10 Golden Rules:

1.    Twitter IS publishing. Putting it out there for others to read is publishing. So don’t tweet anything you wouldn’t be happy to see on the newsagent’s shelf with a picture of you above it.

2.    You think you know the law of libel. You don’t. Nor do any of your friends. I have had grown men telling me on Twitter this week that repeating a libel is not itself libel (it is) or that if you don’t directly say X is a rampant Y, but just hint at it then it doesn’t count (it does).

3.    If you’re an obscure nobody who no one follows, but who wants to say something rude sort-of privately, don’t do it under a trending hashtag. You will bring the wrath of thousands of strangers down on your hapless head.

4.    Some people LIKE the wrath of strangers. They’re called trolls. If you feel yourself bridling at repeated rude comments aimed at you and your cherished views then just BLOCK the offender. They disappear as if by magic.

5.    You are hurt. Wounded. Someone has questioned your talent or integrity. You wish to howl with online pain. Don’t. Those who enjoy your discomfiture will gather like crows around a carcass. Laugh. Put up a smiley.

Print books: GypsyBooks

E-books: Smashwords

6.    That brilliant retort you have composed, replete with pungent sexual or violent imagery, which will utterly destroy the Twitter foe who has, despite my advice, so annoyed you? Cherish it. Roll its 140 characters on your tongue. And then, for God’s sake, DELETE IT.

7.    Don’t tweet while drunk. You think it’s clever, and funny, you giggle and dribble at your own brilliant verbiage. But you are opening wide the gates of Hell. Morning will come, cold and clear.

8.    Don’t EVER meet a jolly Twitter companion, even one you’ve been ff’ing (suggesting people follow you every Friday) for months. Not without a police report. I learnt the hard way.

9.    Get yourself a decent avatar (picture) on Twitter. Not that default egg or the eye slicing scene from Un Chien Andalou. For everyone else’s sake.

10. Lastly, the golden rule, the rule of rules. Never, ever tweet anything about anybody that you wouldn’t say to their face. There’s a REASON why you wouldn’t say it to their face. They might hit you, or sue you. So why would you want to tweet it?

@DAaronovitch

Read more: “The unhealthiest falsehood spread on social networks is that users are living lives of constant glamour and hilarity,” says Libby Purves

Peter’s Piece

There is some sound advice above. Using Facebook and Twitter can be a rewarding and fun experience, but all too often the experience can be shattered by people who are cowardly graffiti vandals with a keyboard. 

ADOLF HITLER

Viewpoint: His dark charisma

Adolf Hitler was an unlikely leader but he still formed a connection with millions of German people, generating a level of charismatic attraction that was almost without parallel. It is a stark warning for the modern day, says historian Laurence Rees.

At the heart of the story of Adolf Hitler is one gigantic, mysterious question: how was it possible that a character as strange and personally inadequate as Hitler ever gained power in a sophisticated country at the heart of Europe, and was then loved by millions of people?

The answer to this vital question is to be found not just in the historical circumstances of the time - in particular the defeat of Germany in World War I and the depression of the early 1930s - but in the nature of Hitler's leadership.

It's this aspect of the story that makes this history particularly relevant to our lives today.

Hitler was the archetypal "charismatic leader". He was not a "normal" politician - someone who promises policies like lower taxes and better health care - but a quasi-religious leader who offered almost spiritual goals of redemption and salvation. He was driven forward by a sense of personal destiny he called "providence".

Before WWI he was a nobody, an oddball who could not form intimate relationships, was unable to debate intellectually and was filled with hatred and prejudice.

But when Hitler spoke in the Munich beer halls in the aftermath of Germany's defeat in WWI, suddenly his weaknesses were perceived as strengths.

His hatred chimed with the feelings of thousands of Germans who felt humiliated by the terms of the Versailles treaty and sought a scapegoat for the loss of the war. His inability to debate was taken as strength of character and his refusal to make small talk was considered the mark of a "great man" who lived apart from the crowd.

More than anything, it was the fact that Hitler found that he could make a connection with his audience that was the basis of all his future success. And many called this connection "charisma".

"The man gave off such a charisma that people believed whatever he said," says Emil Klein, who heard Hitler speak in the 1920s.

But Hitler did not "hypnotise" his audience. Not everyone felt this charismatic connection, you had to be predisposed to believe what Hitler was saying to experience it. Many people who heard Hitler speak at this time who thought he was an idiot.

"I immediately disliked him because of his scratchy voice," says Herbert Richter, a German veteran of WWI who encountered Hitler in Munich in the early 1920s.

"He shouted out really, really simple political ideas. I thought he wasn't quite normal."

In the good economic times, during the mid-to-late twenties in Germany, Hitler was thought charismatic by only a bunch of fanatics. So much so that in the 1928 election the Nazis polled only 2.6% of the vote.

Yet less than five years later Hitler was chancellor of Germany and leader of the most popular political party in the country.

What changed was the economic situation. In the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 there was mass unemployment in Germany and banks crashed.

"The people were really hungry," says Jutta Ruediger, who started to support the Nazis around this time. "It was very, very hard. And in that context, Hitler with his statements seemed to be the bringer of salvation."

She looked at Hitler and suddenly felt a connection with him.

"I myself had the feeling that here was a man who did not think about himself and his own advantage, but solely about the good of the German people."

Hitler told millions of Germans that they were Aryans and therefore "special" and racially "better" people than everyone else, something that helped cement the charismatic connection between leader and led.

He did not hide his hatred, his contempt for democracy or his belief in the use of violence to further political ends from the electorate. But, crucially, he spoke out only against carefully defined enemies like Communists and Jews.

Since the majority of ordinary Germans were not in these risk groups then, as long as they embraced the new world of Nazism, they were relatively free from persecution - at least until the war started to go badly for the Germans.

This history matters to us today. Not because history offers "lessons" - how can it since the past can never repeat itself exactly? But because history can contain warnings.

In an economic crisis millions of people suddenly decided to turn to an unconventional leader they thought had "charisma" because he connected with their fears, hopes and latent desire to blame others for their predicament. And the end result was disastrous for tens of millions of people.

It's bleakly ironic that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was greeted in Athens recently with swastika banners carried by angry Greeks protesting at what they see as German interference in their country.

Ironic because it is in Greece itself - amid terrible economic crisis - that we see the sudden rise of a political movement like the Golden Dawn that glories in its intolerance and desire to persecute minorities.

And is led by a man has claimed there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz. Can there be a bigger warning than that?

Laurence Rees is a former creative director of history programmes for the BBC and the author of six books on World War II.

More in BBC News Magazine

Peter’s Piece

Here are some of the triggers that can propel Hitler-type half-wits to power:

·           High levels of unemployment and business failure.

·          A belief that a simplistic new economic order will solve all problems.

·           Widespread racial and religious intolerance.

·           General dissatisfaction with the courts and the sentencing of criminals.

·           A loss of faith in democratic government.

·           Growing numbers of people who regard themselves as victims.

·           Loud-mouthed half-wits shouting simplistic solutions to all the above.

That’s all it takes and wherever we live, we all need to be vigilant.

A LUCKY EMAIL

An email with a $1 million gift

Today has been a day so special that I will remember it to my dying day. I have never known
such joy and happiness. Today I received a special email, totally unsolicited and right out of
the blue. Here it is:

Dear Sir/Madam
This is my seventh time of writing you this email. My wife and I won a Jackpot
Lottery of $11.2 million in July and have voluntarily decided to donate the sum
of $1,000,000.00 USD to you as part of our own charity project to improve the
lot of 5 lucky individuals all over the world.
If you have received this email then you are one of the lucky recipients and
all you have to do is get back with us so that we can send your details to the
payout bank.
You can verify this by visiting the web pages below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11699678
Goodluck.
The Larges.

So I quickly clicked on the link and sure enough it took me to the US-Canada page of BBC
New and right there in front of my eyes was a photo of a lovely Canadian couple holding a
check for $11.2 million dollars.

I’ve reproduced the BBC item below:

Canadian couple give away millions in lottery winnings

A Canadian couple who won $10.9m (£6.7m) in lottery winnings in July say they have given away $10.2m of the prize to groups in their community.

Allen and Violet Large with their winnings

Allen and Violet Large said they were plain country folks who needed no more than "what we've got".

The two said they had donated about 98% of the cash after helping their family.

The elderly pair gave the money to churches, fire departments, cemeteries, the Red Cross and hospitals, where Ms Large has undergone cancer treatment.

"We haven't bought one thing. That's because there is nothing that we need," Mr Large, 75, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Mr Large, a retired welder from Canada's Nova Scotia province, added that he and his wife were quite content with their 147-year-old home and everything else they already owned.

"You can't buy happiness," he said.

It was almost too good to be true. The lovely Canadian couple really did want to give me $1 million dollars.

From the US-Canadian page button I clicked on the home page button and it flicked across. It really was BBC News. Then I clicked on the US-Canada button again and it flicked back to US-Canada news, but it was an entirely different page of news. The lovely old Canadians had vanished.

So I Googled Allen and Violet Large and, large as life, I found they were almost everywhere. They were famous. They really had won a lot of money and given most of it away, but that was more than two years ago and the money was long gone.

Meanwhile, some fraudsters have been sending out emails, claiming to be the Larges, and tricking people into giving personal information including bank account details.

Below is one of the many items turned up by Google:

Scammers Phish for Victims While Impersonating Elderly Couple Who Won Lottery

Marquisa Kirkland 7th August 2012

A few years ago, elderly couple Allen & Violet Large won the lottery and collected a cool $11.2 million dollars.
Instead of keeping their winnings all to themselves, they donated it to family members, charity groups and nearby businesses in their area.
While most of us simply appreciate idea that these folks chose to make such a generous decision to share their wealth with those around them, cybercriminals have decided to use the story as a gateway to yet another scam.
The scam starts off with an email similar to the one I received below:
From: Programa Jornal da Cultura (jornaldacultura@tvcultura.com.br)
Subject: Dear Lucky Winner….
I and my wife violet voluntarily decided to donate the sum of $500,000.00 USD to you as part of charity project to improve the lot of 10 lucky individuals worldwide. You can also verify the link below
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326473/Canadian-couple-Allen-Violet-Large-away-entire-11-2m-lottery-win.html
Send Your
Name..
Telephone..
Age..
Country..
To our private email: allen.violet-large01@live.com and please do not reply to this jornaldacultura@tvcultura.com.br
Good luck,
Allen and Violet Large
As you can see, the scammers decided to throw in a link to the legitimate article to help build credibility (assuming you don’t read the date).
Of course, this email was not sent by Allen or Violet Large, but a scammer that’s looking to make a quick buck through an advanced fee scheme, collect confidential information to commit identity fraud, or maybe both.
Bottom line is, don’t reply to this email (or any others like it) and definitely do NOT provide your personal or financial information.

http://www.hyphenet.com/blog/2012/08/07/scammers-phish-for-victims-while-impersonating-elderly-couple-who-won-lottery/

Now isn’t that a shame? I was so looking forward to a donation of $1 million dollars.

EINSTEIN OR GOD?

Does God exist?
Einstein's 'God letter' does, and it's up for sale

By Jeanna Bryner  Managing editor Life Science 10/5/2012 2012-10-05T21:02:50

 Famed physicist's handwritten note, to be auctioned on eBay, calls religion 'pretty childish'

Albert Einstein in prayer

In a 1954 handwritten letter, Albert Einstein revealed his thoughts on God and religion. The original letter is going up for sale at auction on Monday.

From studying slices of his brilliant brain to probing profound physics theories, scientists and enthusiasts alike have long been spellbound by Albert Einstein. Now, an auction is offering the world a peek at Einstein's thoughts on what may be humanity's most profound question: the existence of God.

The private letter written by Einstein expressing his views on God and religion will go up for auction Monday on eBay. In the letter, he calls belief in religion and God "pretty childish" and ridicules the idea that the Jews are a chosen people.

"This is the most historic and significant piece we have listed on eBay," Eric Gazin, president of Auction Cause, the agency managing the sale, told LiveScience in an email. "We are excited to offer a person or organization an opportunity to own perhaps one of the most intriguing 20th-century documents in existence. This personal letter from Einstein represents the nexus of science, theology, reason and culture."

Einstein's 1954 God letter

Einstein handwrote the letter in German to Jewish philosopher Eric B. Gutkind on Jan. 3, 1954, a year before Einstein's death. The letter was a response to Gutkind's book "Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt" (1952, H. Schuman; 1st edition).

In part of his letter, Einstein writes, "For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them," as translated from German by Joan Stambaugh. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]

In his book, Gutkind suggested that unlike the mass hypnosis spoiling mankind at the time, "The soul of the Jewish people was never a mass-soul. Israel's soul could not be hypnotized; it never succumbed to hypnotic assaults. … The soul of Israel is incorruptible."

And as for whether Einstein believed in God? Yes and no, it seems.

In a March 24, 1954 letter, he is quoted as writing, "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

However, in the letter to Gutkind, Einstein wrote the word God was "nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

Einstein in 1921

This isn't the first time this "God" letter has been up for auction: In 2008, an unidentified buyer who had "a passion for theoretical physics" bought the letter at a Bloomsbury Auctions sale in London for $404,000, 25 times its presale estimate, according to an article in the New York Times.

The letter to Gutkind has been stored in a temperature-, humidity- and light-controlled environment at an academic institution specializing in the care of cultural heritage collections, according to an eBay description. Since the letter has been known among scientists for more than 50 years, the description reads, its authenticity has never been questioned. The letter is in its original envelope, holding a stamp and postmark from Princeton, N.J., where Einstein lived toward the end of his life.

The last few years have seen an outpouring of projects that bring the famous genius down to Earth: For instance, in March, a large collection of Einstein's documents — everything from personal letters to scientific manuscripts — went online as part of an endeavor by the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology.

The archive reveals both the academic side of Einstein — with one of only three existing manuscripts containing the famous E=mc^2 equation written in Einstein's handwriting — and his personal life — with a postcard to his mother Pauline. Pieces of his brain went on display for the first time at Philadelphia's Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library.

And just last month an iPad app was released that allows the public to get up-close and personal with Einstein's gray matter.

The "God" letter goes on sale Monday, with an opening bid of $3 million. Anyone interested (with the money to spare) can make an eBay bid here.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

Peter’s Piece

Albert Einstein was right about many things and he could well have been right about God too. He certainly left the world a lot to think about.

AERODYNAMIC TRUCKS

At 13.4 mpg, the future
is in aerodynamic trucking

Max Heine|October 03, 2012 Overdrive Magazine

Bob Sliwa's latest Airflow truck

Aerodynamics is getting more attention these days now that diesel has risen fairly steadily for about four months to top $4. You can read a lot more about it in the November Overdrive, where columnist Kevin Rutherford will examine the aero trailer benefits for owner-operators. Also in that issue, our fuel-saving tips list will devote a big section to aero features.

Those who attended the Mid-America Trucking Show this year got a glimpse of aero’s possible future if they stopped by the AirFlow Truck Co. exhibit. The company’s website also has plenty of info on what they’ve done and are trying to do.

 

Most impressive is the results from a test run from Connecticut to California in June. AirFlow says its BulletTruck prototype averaged 13.4 miles per gallon. The website documents the effort and has good shots of the truck, which was originally a 2003 Kenworth T2000. It’s powered by a Cummins 15-liter ISX, with 450 hp and 1,450 ft.-lb. of torque, writes AirFlow President Bob Sliwa. Gross vehicle weight for the test run, which included actual deliveries, was 65,000 pounds and below.

“If we get the investors, we intend to build AirFlow Trucks from scratch and sell them in the (hopefully) near future,” Sliwa says. He points to the 2015, which will be similar to the cross-country test model.

More in Overdriveonline

Peter’s Piece

Airflow’s Bob Sliva is a genius with a long background in trucking, car racing and flying.

As a long time professional driver and one-time pilot, I have often wondered why large trucks and buses have not had aerodynamic designs to save fuel, and make them easier to handle in windy conditions.

Airflow owner Bob Sliwa

Long ago I concluded that while the designers care about styling, they know very little about aerodynamics, and care even less.

Any pilot will tell you about the basics of form drag (the drag caused by the shape of an object as it passes through the air) and he will tell you that with a square solid object, about 70% of the drag is created by the back end, and about 15% by the front and the remainder by the sides, provided they are reasonably smooth and free of obstructions.

It follows that streamlining the back of a truck or bus is vitally important if the drag and fuel consumption is going to be reduced.

But there is another vital area too and that is the underneath of the vehicle.

The underside of aircraft are always closed in and streamlined, and that’s not just to make it look good from the ground. The aircraft designer knows that an open side will create considerable unwanted drag so the underside becomes part of the wrap-around skin.

With vehicles there would be other advantages to be had also from a closed underside.

There is another curious fact about air resistance that is not well known among drivers and fleet operators and that is that for every 1% increase in speed there will be a 4% increase in drag and a corresponding 4% increase in anti-drag fuel consumption.

Bob Sliwa and Airflow Trucks appear to be right on the ball with drag reduction.

The Asker Trilogy