Auto parts and accessories with a difference!

A friend, Al H., sent me a link to Kale Co. Auto, which appears to be the answer to every automotive practical joker's dreams! I had to laugh at their array of new products, which includes (but is not limited to):

Porcupine seat covers - "Only for the adventurous, never for the boring. Porcupine seat covers are made with no less than 4 skins per seat! (That's about 120,000 quills, if you are counting.)"

Engine oil bypass kit - "Modern synthetic oil is very expensive - so why run the risk of getting it dirty by running it through your motor block?"

Blinker fluid - "Are your blinkers sluggish? Do they make an annoying ticking noise? Do they not flash fast enough? Here's your solution. Little do people know, factory quality blinker fluid should be changed every 150,000 blinks. Our blinker fluid lasts ten times that."

High intensity road flares - "These are KaleCoAuto's finest road flares. They are specially made to compete with modern HID lighting, and provide the best bang for your buck you can get! A word of warning, you may want to take at least three steps back after lighting, these flares are extremely bright." (I just bet they are!)

There are many more chuckle-worthy products at the site. I think Brigid and Engineering Johnson should spend some time going through them together. They're sure to find something useful to go with his duct-tape roses!





Peter

Plastic surgery through the ages

National Geographic has produced a very interesting infographic on the origins and development of plastic surgery from ancient times until today. Here's a brief excerpt to illustrate it.




There's more at the link. I didn't realize plastic surgery's origins went back so far. Very interesting reading.

Peter

Europe on the brink?

We've spoken before about the European financial crisis. Things are going downhill rapidly there. Today Moody's, one of the Big Three credit rating agencies, "cut the debt ratings of six European countries including Italy, Spain and Portugal, and revised its outlook on the U.K.’s and France’s top Aaa ratings to 'negative', citing Europe’s debt crisis". Moody's is the third and last of the Big Three to cut European credit ratings. Standard & Poor's and Fitch, the other two, did so last month.

To give you an idea of how bad things are getting over there, last week the Telegraph reported that GlaxoSmithKline (ranked 194th in the Fortune Global 500 last year), is adopting new measures to protect its funds.

GlaxoSmithKline is clearing cash out of eurozone countries on a daily basis to protect itself against a potential banking and liquidity crisis in the region.

Sir Andrew Witty, chief executive of Britain's biggest drug maker, said that early last year the company had started emptying "tens of millions of pounds" in cash every day out of most eurozone countries into accounts in Britain.

"We don't leave any cash in most European countries. We sweep any cash we raise during the day out of local banks into banks we think are robust and secure," he added. "You do your best to actively manage the risk."

Drug makers have been hurt by price cuts in the eurozone as cash-strapped governments curb their drug bills, as well as failures by countries to pay their debts.

But Sir Andrew said that Glaxo had been reducing its risk over the past two years through "a huge focus on getting paid" by the hospitals it sells to in Southern Europe and it had been able to reduce its debts in the region.

There's more at the link.

I'm sure GlaxoSmithKline is unlikely to be the only major multinational company seeking to protect its funds in this way. Even so, when the world's third-largest pharmaceutical company finds it necessary to take such drastic steps, you can draw your own conclusions. I think Europe's right on the brink. Sooner rather than later, something nasty is going to happen; and when it does, the ripples will spread across the Atlantic Ocean with blinding speed and rock America as well.

Brace yourselves.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #572

The video speaks for itself.

Peter

If this happened to me, there'd be hell to pay!

I'm furious to read (courtesy of a link by Earthbound Misfit) about a grandfather and his granddaughter in Austin, TX, who were allegedly the victims of some very heavy-handed and highly unprofessional conduct by that city's Police Department. The grandfather blogs at 'Grits For Breakfast', and tells us what happened from his perspective. Here's a brief excerpt.

We stopped to look back, and there was a dark silhouette crossing the street who Ty thought was calling out to us. We waited, but then the silhouetted figure stopped, crouched down for a moment, then took a few steps back toward the rec center, appearing to speak to someone there. I shrugged it off and we walked on, but in a moment the figure began walking down the path toward us again, calling out when she was about 150 feet away. We stopped and waited. It was a brown-suited deputy constable, apparently out of breath from the short walk.

She told me to take my hand out of my pocket and to step away from Ty, declaring that someone had seen a white man chasing a black girl and reported a possible kidnapping. Then she began asking the five-year old about me. The last time this happened, Ty was barely two, and I wasn't about to let police question her. This time, though, at least initially, I decided to let her answer. "Do you know this man?" the deputy asked. "Yes," Ty mumbled shyly, "he's my Grandpa." The deputy couldn't understand her (though I did) and moved closer, hovering over the child slightly, repeating the question. Ty mumbled the same response, this time louder, but muffled through a burgeoning sob that threatened to break out in lieu of an answer.

The deputy still didn't understand her: "What did you say?" she repeated. "He's my Grandpa!," Ty finally blurted, sharply and clearly, then rushed back over to me and grabbed hold of my leg. "Okay," said the deputy, relaxing, acknowledging the child probably wasn't being held against her will. (As we were talking, a car pulled up behind her on the bike path with its brights on - I couldn't tell what agency it was with) Then she pulled out her pad and paper and asked "Can I get your name, sir, just for my report?" I told her I'd prefer not to answer any questions and would like to leave, if we were free to go, so I could get the child to bed. She looked skeptical but nodded and Ty and I turned tail and walked toward home.

. . .

As soon as we crossed the street, just two blocks from my house as the crow flies, the police car that just passed us hit its lights and wheeled around, with five others appearing almost immediately, all with lights flashing. The officers got out with tasers drawn demanding I raise my hands and step away from the child. I complied, and they roughly cuffed me, jerking my arms up behind me needlessly. Meanwhile, Ty edged up the hill away from the officers, crying. One of them called out in a comforting tone that they weren't there to hurt her, but another officer blew up any good will that might have garnered by brusquely snatching her up and scuttling her off to the back seat of one of the police cars. (By this time more cars had joined them; they maxxed out at 9 or 10 police vehicles.)

I gave them the phone numbers they needed to confirm who Ty was and that she was supposed to be with me (and not in the back of their police car), but for quite a while nobody seemed too interested in verifying my "story." One officer wanted to lecture me endlessly about how they were just doing their job, as if the innocent person handcuffed on the side of the road cares about such excuses. I asked why he hadn't made any calls yet, and he interrupted his lecture to say "we've only been here two minutes, give us time" (actually it'd been longer than that). "Maybe so," I replied, sitting on the concrete in handcuffs, "but there are nine of y'all milling about doing nothing by my count so between you you've had 18 minutes for somebody to get on the damn phone by now so y'all can figure out you screwed up." Admittedly, this did not go over well. I could tell I was too pissed off to say anything constructive and silently vowed to keep mum from then on.

As all this was happening, the deputy constable who'd questioned us before walked up to the scene and began conversing with some of the officers. She kept looking over at me nervously as I stood 20 feet or so away in handcuffs, averting her gaze whenever our eyes risked meeting. It seemed pretty clear she was the one who called in the cavalry, and it was equally clear she understood she was in the wrong.

There's much more at the link.

Obviously, we've only heard one side of events here; but if even half what he relates is true, I believe he should file a civil rights lawsuit at once. He describes so many breaches of his constitutional and legal rights (not to mention generally accepted police procedures and practices) that I think his case would be a slam-dunk in court. If his allegations are proven to be correct, it seems to me that the entire Austin PD will need a top-to-bottom overhaul and re-training (not to mention dismissal of all those involved in such egregious violations). On the other hand, if the allegations are proven to be false, then the grandfather needs to answer for his accusations.

I hope that pressure will be applied to get to the bottom of this situation. Why haven't the mainstream news media in Austin picked up on it? Perhaps readers in or near that city could draw this matter to their attention, and/or write to their council representatives, asking them to investigate further. Also, if any of my readers are in personal contact with Radley Balko, I'd be grateful if you'd please inform him about this matter - he might be interested in following up. I don't think this should be allowed to fade away. The issues it raises are too important for that.

Peter

Coffee art?

The good people at Dark Roasted Blend have just published an article titled 'Coffee Art & Style Extravaganza'. It's filled with wonderful (and sometimes weird) pictures of coffee makers, cups of coffee, coffee cakes, and various and sundry other aspects of the cult of coffee. Here are a few examples.

Royal Vacuum Coffeemaker Classic Copper

Flavorful photography by Elena Shumaeva

'Coffee Latte' art

'Alien'-ating coffee cakes and pastries

There are many more at the link. Fascinating viewing - particularly for coffee-lovers! It certainly makes me thirsty for a cup of the good stuff . . . Thumbs up to Dark Roasted Blend for a particularly entertaining article, outstanding even according to their always high standards.

Peter

A convoluted tale of corporate shenanigans

It's long been known that 'official' Chinese economic statistics are, at best, questionable - at worst, they may be completely untrustworthy. It's beginning to appear as if many Chinese companies are copying their authorities, and releasing highly questionable financial and other data to Western investors. The Wall Street Journal reported last year:

... dozens of companies from China ... have come under fire by investors and regulators for allegedly misleading investors, exposing a loophole that has U.S. regulators concerned.

. . .

Underscoring the SEC's broader concerns, the regulator is examining accounting and disclosure issues regarding Chinese companies that listed in the U.S. through a backdoor process known as a "reverse merger" or "reverse takeover" that requires them to disclose a lot less information to investors than a traditional initial public offering.

"Given the potential risks, investors should be especially careful when considering investing in the stock of reverse-merger companies," Lori Schock, the SEC's director of investor education and advocacy, said in a blunt warning on Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the SEC also is investigating some of the Chinese companies' U.S. auditors, too, and that the inquiry is expected to lead to enforcement cases.

. . .

A survey by the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which monitors auditors, identified 159 Chinese companies from the start of 2007 through March 2010 that listed in the U.S. through reverse takeovers. That is almost three times the number of Chinese companies that launched traditional IPOs in the U.S. over the same period. While most reverse-takeover companies are small, as a group they pack weight: Those covered by the survey had a total market capitalization of $12.8 billion in March 2010.

"While the vast majority of these Chinese companies may be legitimate businesses, a growing number of them are proving to have significant accounting deficiencies or being vessels of outright fraud," said Luis Aguilar, a commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in April.

. . .

In all, billions of dollars in market value have vaporized in reverse-takeover companies that have come under criticism from investors, auditors and short sellers.

. . .

The SEC's ability to discipline these companies is limited. Reverse takeovers are legal, and the agency's jurisdiction doesn't extend into China, so it can't subpoena documents and people. With company assets and most senior executives in China, the U.S. has limited scope to enforce any decisions against them.

There's more at the link.

A particularly egregious example of such corporate duplicity has been exposed recently in the case of Focus Media Holding Ltd. of Hong Kong. The Sydney Morning Herald reports today:

The face-off between the Macquarie-advised and Nasdaq-listed Chinese digital advertising company Focus Media Holding Ltd (aka FMCN) and the mud-raking Hong Kong research house Muddy Waters continues.

Four months since Muddy Waters dubbed FMCN the 'Olympus of China' for the alleged 'significant overstatement of the number of screens in its LCD network and its Olympus-style acquisition overpayments', it has issued another update on the company.

In its latest report, Muddy Waters said 30,500 of FMCN's 'verified' 185,174 LCD digital billboards (in response to its original allegations) were 'mere cardboard posters'.

"FMCN has made it unambiguous that 'LCD' means Liquid Crystal - not Light Cardboard - display," said the research firm, which gained notoriety last year by highlighting the financial irregularities in the Toronto-listed Sino Forest.

"FMCN attempted to pull a Jedi mind trick by referring to roughly 30,500 cardboard posters as 'LCD 1.0 picture frame devices'."

Again, more at the link.

As I said, that's a particularly egregious example. It takes a great deal of chutzpah to 'steal' the initials LCD - accepted throughout the world as meaning 'Liquid Crystal Display' - and instead use them to refer to a 'Light Cardboard Display' - i.e. a printed poster! To call that 'misleading' is to be extremely charitable . . . 'deliberately fraudulent' would be a better description. However, that's not the only area where Focus Media Holding Ltd. has been up to some rather disturbing tricks. The Wall Street Daily reported last year:

In case you’re unaware, when one company buys another, it lists the acquisition as an asset at the cost it paid. If the buyer later finds that the asset is overvalued, it can “write-down” those assets, making them worth less and taking the loss.

In Focus Media’s case, it appears to have acquired a number of companies at inflated prices and then wrote-down the assets.

For example, Focus Media paid $24.2 million for a riverboat company, which has large advertising screens on its vessel. It separately bought the boat for $12.4 million (a total of $36.6 million).

However, just three months earlier, a different company had agreed to acquire the same riverboat company for a mere $3.7 million (the deal fell through). In addition, Muddy Waters calculates that the boat’s value was actually closer to $3.9 million, not $12.4 million!

Sure enough, 14 months after the acquisition, Focus Media wrote-down the holdings and declared a $36.9 million loss.

A closer look reveals that Focus Media’s total losses from write-downs like this one totaled $1.1 billion.

. . .

So why the heck would Focus Media want to intentionally rack up losses from acquisitions?

There are at least two possible reasons:

1. The acquisitions were a smokescreen, used to hide losses from the false number of advertising screens that Focus Media claimed it had.
2. The acquisitions were used to somehow funnel cash to Focus Media’s insiders. ... And while the allegations haven’t been proven yet, the record shows that Focus Media insiders have cashed out on $1.7 billion in stock since 2005.

More at the link.

Focus Media is, of course, only one of many companies suspected of financial and reporting irregularities by Western regulators. I've used it because it's a convenient example, with much quotable reporting on what it's been doing. Another is Sino-Forest. An Internet search will reveal much more information, if you're interested.

I guess this is just another example of why 'caveat emptor' remains a valid warning throughout the world. Also, we can't really blame Chinese companies alone for employing dodgy financial reporting . . . remember what the banksters got up to prior to and during the 2008/09 financial crisis? The biggest banks and companies in the West have set an example that's being eagerly followed by their Far Eastern counterparts! Note, too, that the Big Five US banks have just agreed to a $25 billion settlement deal to avoid prosecution over their illegal activities in connection with home mortgages. Personally, I think they've gotten off extremely lightly. After all, they issued hundreds of billions of dollars in defective mortgages! I'd have hung them out to dry, including jail time for all those in charge.

Be that as it may, it appears increasingly likely that most companies' financial reporting should be regarded as suspicious in these hard economic times. Too many of them are reporting things in as favorable a light as possible, and if necessary being 'economical with the truth' to get away with it. As broker Ann Barnhardt observed recently:

The futures and options markets are no longer viable. It is my recommendation that ALL customers withdraw from all of the markets as soon as possible so that they have the best chance of protecting themselves and their equity. The system is no longer functioning with integrity and is suicidally risk-laden. The rule of law is non-existent, instead replaced with godless, criminal political cronyism.

Again, more at the link.

Caveat emptor, indeed!

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #571

I thought everybody knew that sewer gases are not only unpleasant to smell, they're also frequently flammable - and when they're confined, 'flammable' can turn to 'explosive' in short order. The gentleman (?) shown below clearly didn't get that message.

I'd say he knows better now . . . wouldn't you?





Peter

A fragile relationship cracks under the pressure of reality

Reader Kyle S. sent me the link to an article in the New York Times, wherein the writer speaks of her relationship with a member of the US armed forces, and how it's going to end (or, rather, how she's going to end it) when he deploys to Afghanistan. Here's an excerpt.

I’m afraid that the loneliness that is starting to seep into his being, the loneliness that he will feel the full weight of once he puts on his uniform and that will sit in the pit of his stomach throughout the deployment, is contagious. I don’t want to share that burden with him. In fact, I’m afraid of catching it from him. Ending our relationship feels like my only option, the only vaccine.

But deep down, I know I’m already infected. I just can’t bring myself to admit it. Ending our relationship may not be the cure, but denial is a strong antiseptic.

The Army drives home the point that no man should be left behind. The way my guy’s demeanor changes when he speaks of his last deployment makes me question if that’s true. But even if it is, that saying doesn’t appear to apply to civilians back home. When a soldier in a relationship deploys, the dynamic that is created has two sides: there is the person who left, and the person who is left behind.

I don’t want to be the one left behind.

. . .

Several times a week, in the middle of the night, as I put my bed back together and will my breath to steady, I find myself wondering why he is the only one who gets body armor. Body armor will protect his heart, but my heart needs protection, too.

He has told me that getting to know me has been a gift in his life. So, in return, on his 27th birthday — which just so happens to be his deployment day — I will help him celebrate by taking away his gift and walking away. Walking back to a life where you actually get to eat cake on your birthday, and keep your presents.

It’s sweet that he views me as a present. But I am not a gift. I am only a girl.

I just wish I had the courage to really be his girl.

There's more at the link.

My correspondent was rather contemptuous of the attitudes displayed by the young lady who wrote that article. He pointed out the number of times she used terms such as "I", "me" or "mine", the rather fewer number of times she spoke of "he", "him" or "his", and the still fewer (minimal) number of times she referred to "we" or "us".

I'm not so sure she deserves the condemnation he was more than prepared to make. First of all, I agree with him that with her use of personal versus collective terms, she was making it very clear that she was only in this relationship on her terms, not on shared terms; but isn't that the problem with so many modern relationships? I've long since lost count of the number of 'problem relationships' where, as a pastor and/or chaplain, I would be asked to counsel the couple. Whenever I heard one party (frequently both) say something like "I'm not getting out of this relationship what I expected", my instant retort was always "Well, what are you putting into it?" It's part of the Golden Rule, which is found in every major religion on Earth and in most major secular philosophies. Variations include (but are not limited to):

• "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you"
• "As you sow, so shall you reap"
• "Treat others as you want them to treat you"

It's a never-failing recipe for success in most relationships (assuming a reasonably sane and stable foundation to begin with).

Secondly, she's grown up in a society that preaches instant (or almost instant) gratification and self-centeredness, be it in shopping, or sex, or anything else. "You deserve this!" "You're entitled to happiness!" Sound familiar? Yet our not-too-distant forefathers would look at you in blank astonishment if you told them that. They grew up during the Great Depression, and fought World War II, and came home to rebuild their lives. Millions came home to divided families, as faithless spouses (both men and women) found that their wartime affairs had destroyed the foundation of trust in their marriages. Millions more didn't come home at all, leaving wives as widows and children as orphans. There was precious little talk of 'deserving' gratification or being 'entitled' to happiness . . . the survivors got on with rebuilding their lives, and their world, as best they could. They toughed it out, and made the best of a bad job.

My own parents are (or, rather, were) living proof of that. They married in haste during World War II, and shortly thereafter my father was drafted overseas. They didn't see each other for three years, during which time my father fought through the Western Desert campaign, and Mom spent many long, weary nights watching for the fall of German bombs and fighting fires started by incendiaries. When they finally met again, I think both of them realized that they weren't really compatible, weren't really the 'soul-mates' that the romance novels prattle on about: yet, they'd made a commitment to each other, and they were determined to make that commitment work. They succeeded - not without problems, not without some very serious difficulties, but they succeeded. They were together for 64 years. Together they moved to a distant continent, built new lives there, brought up four children, and earned a Ph.D. apiece. If you'd said to them that they deserved more happiness for less hard work, they'd have looked at you incredulously, then laughed in your face. They did what was put in front of them to do. That's the way it was - and still is for the vast majority of the world's population. It's only in the self-centered, affluent West that we've developed a different perspective.

That different perspective may have precious little to justify it in reality. After all, relationships aren't a matter of feeling - they're a matter of fact. If you're not prepared to truly commit yourself to your partner, to accept the worse along with the better and the poorer along with the richer, then you don't have a relationship at all. You're just playing at commitment. We don't teach our children to live that way today - the divorce rate proves it! I submit that our society, and our relationships, are the poorer for the loss of that perspective. The author of that New York Times article appears to me to be a perfect illustration of that reality.

What say you, readers? Am I on track with what I'm saying here, or am I simply too old-fashioned to recognize current reality? Please let me know in Comments.

Peter

WANT!!!

I have this overwhelming impulse to build a great big extension on the house we're currently sharing with our landlord, just so it can accommodate the new Dornbracht horizontal shower.




Yes, it's a shower you lie down to use! It's not terribly practical for soaping yourself, but for easing aching muscles and sore spines with a cascade of hot water, it looks just about perfect . . .

As Gizmodo's review said of it:

It's a shower I don't have to stand, or at the least prop myself up against the wall, to use. It has all the lazy benefits of taking a bath, without sitting in dirty water that gets lukewarm in a couple of minutes. I just know it's going to cost a small fortune (not including installation) but sorry about your college fund future kids, I need this more, and I need this now.

And my fused, aching spine is already nagging me the same way! Unfortunately, on a disability income, there's no way I'll ever be able to afford one . . .

*Sigh*

Peter

Revenge is sweet!

It seems an Australian man planted an axe in the roof of his friend's car as a 'practical joke'. Aside from the fact that I think all practical jokers should be strung up by the short and curlies, the victim of this prank decided that turnabout was fair play - so he got his own back in a magnificently malicious fashion! Let the video tell the tale.

Oh, yeah! Now that's what I call Revenge, with a capital 'R'!





Peter

Cancer's secrets are being revealed

There's an extremely interesting article at io9.com about the progress being made in the fight against cancer. Having lost more than one friend to this disease, it's a subject of great importance to me. Here's an extract.

You probably already know that cancer is not just one disease — it's many diseases, gathered under a single umbrella. But in the past, we thought there were types of cancer called "breast cancer" or "prostate cancer," which were basically site specific — and now we've found that cancer is much more varied.

"Cancer is hundreds if not thousands of different diseases," says David Weinstock, an assistant professor with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. "Saying, 'Why don't we have a cure to cancer,' is like saying, 'Why don't we have a cure to infection.'"

There are multiple levels of complexity, adds Weinstock: You have different basic types, like colon cancer versus lymphoma. Then you have hundreds of different types of lymphomas, and then every single person's lymphoma is different at a molecular level. And even though you think of cancer cells as all identical, in fact "not every cancer is the same, [and] there are many differences within a tumor." When you attack a tumor, "you're killing a diverse population" of cells, some of which will be resistant.

Most cancers under treatment have 100 different mutations within a single tumor, says Agus. "It's very hard to model that."

Meanwhile, you have to kill the tumor without killing the person who has it. People talk about the "therapeutic index," says Weinstock — which is the chances of killing the tumor, versus the chances of killing a normal cell.

Another wrinkle: cancer cells are bi-directional, meaning that stem cells can differentiate into mature tumor cells — but mature tumor cells can also turn back into stem cells, says Agus. Thus, treatments that have involved just killing the stem cells in the hopes that this would keep the cancer from recurring have failed, because the tumor can always repopulate with more stem cells.

There's more at the link.

The article points out that major advances in the treatment of cancer have occurred, and are ongoing. Still, it's going to be a long, hard battle to beat this disease.

Peter

Overweight . . . in more ways than one!

If you've been trying to lose weight by combining diet and exercise, without success, there's a new product in Britain that may help with both aspects. Metro reports:

Britons will now be able to tone up their muscles while they eat after a company released a bizarre new cutlery set attached to dumbbells.




The hefty chrome knife and fork weigh one kilogram [2.2 pounds] each - the equivalent of a bag of sugar - while the spoon measures in at an extraordinary two kilograms [4.4 pounds], which is heavier than a complete 32-piece set of stainless steel cutlery.

The innovative products, called Eat Fit Cutlery, have been described as good for 'gluttons in need of a work out'. But you'll need to be willing to pay a costly £89.99 [about US $140] if you want to buy the set.

There's more at the link.

I can't help but think you'd be better off working out with that cutlery rather than eating with it! I've heard of indigestion pains (indeed, I've had 'em myself from time to time!), but the thought of sore arms and wrists at the same time is a bit daunting . . . and what if you drop one of them on your foot (or, even worse, your partner's foot)? It's heavy enough to hospitalize someone!





Peter

The Civil War through the camera lens

The Atlantic's 'In Focus' photography column is producing a series of articles containing photographs of the American Civil War (1861-65). They contain some remarkable pictures. Here are a few samples.

From the first article in the series, 'The Civil War, Part 1: The Places', here's Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1861, shortly after its capture by Confederate forces. Repairs are already being made to the damage inflicted by the Rebel artillery bombardment.




From 'The Civil War, Part 2: The People', here are three pictures of a slave from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, identified only as 'Peter'. The scars are the result of a savage beating by his overseer, from which he needed more than two months to recover.




The next article, 'The Civil War, Part 3: The Stereographs', contains photos shot in stereographic format (i.e. two photographs are taken from two slightly different positions, so that when seen together through the requisite viewer the two-dimensional pictures appear to combine, producing a single, three-dimensional image). In the article, you can accomplish this by clicking each picture to see the two images briefly contrasted. I can't reproduce a stereographic effect on my blog, but here's one of the images, showing a mortar mounted on a railroad carriage near Petersburg, Virginia (no date is given).




There are to be more articles in the series, so it's worth bookmarking the 'In Focus' home page to keep track of them as they appear. Also, the Atlantic's special issue commemorating the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, published last year, is now available online. It has a number of very interesting articles, plus more illustrations. Along with the photo articles, it's highly recommended reading for history buffs.

Peter

The Cresta Run turns 125!

I'm sure readers are aware of the notorious Cresta Run, the purpose-built skeleton racing toboggan track at St. Moritz in Switzerland. 2012 is the 125th year that it's been built and raced, at a cost (so far) of four dead and countless hundreds (if not thousands) injured to a greater or lesser extent.




The St. Moritz Tobogganing Club (SMTB) describes the Cresta Run as follows:

The Cresta is an ice run, three quarters of a mile long, that winds its way from above the 'Leaning Tower' in St Moritz down a steep gully through ten testing corners, past the tiny hamlet of Cresta, to the village of Celerina. The total drop is 514 ft and the gradient varies from 1 in 2.8 to 1 in 8.7.

The first Run was completed in January 1885 and took nearly nine weeks to build. Only the three upper banks received detailed work . The Cresta Run is still built from scratch every year using the natural contours of the valley and earth banks to provide a framework on which to pile the snow. The Run from Junction is built first, the upper banks second.




The Cresta usually opens two or three days before Christmas and continues for nine weeks until the end of February. There are over thirty highly competitive races and riding takes place every morning of the week. It is a private club, but non-Members are welcome to come and ride.

. . .

The Cresta has two starting points: Top and Junction. The current record from Top is 50.09 seconds, held by James Sunley. This means an average speed of over 53 m.p.h. ending at Finish at a speed close to 80 m.p.h. Riders from Junction begin opposite the Clubhouse, about one-third down the Run from Top. The current record from Junction, held by Johannes Badrutt, is 41.02 seconds.

There's more at the link. Here's what it looks like from the tobogganist's point of view.

As part of the celebrations of the 125th anniversary, the SMTB organized a special ladies race (special in that women have been officially banned from racing there since 1929). Lisa Grainger took up the challenge for the Telegraph. She reports:

As my name heads closer to the top of the list on the official board above the Run, I feel utterly sick. My heart is thundering so hard I can feel the blood pumping in my eyeballs. My hands are sweating beneath my metal knuckle-guards. And I keep having to take my helmet off because my rapid breathing is steaming my visor up. A voice in my head keeps saying: "It's not too late to chicken out".

Then my name is called: "Lisa Grainger to the box" and, almost in a trance, I'm helped down on to the track, where I lie down on my toboggan and quietly survey the ice below my nose. A few last-minute tips are given by my "guru" George Bingham, and then the bell rings – a single loud "ding" – and I'm off to the shouts of "Rake, rake, for god's sake rake!" as I hurtle downhill, feeling totally out of control, white walls flying past me, at me, in front of me, as I smash into hard, compacted edges, soar up ice walls, try and steer left and right, and finally, as promised, seeing a long, straightish white stretch in front, press my body as far forward on the toboggan as I can get it, for what I know will be my final burst of speed at the finishing line. Almost as soon as it's begun, it's over.




What did I feel like? Like a leaf being hurtled through rapids, I felt totally out of control, yet aware of every sight and sensation: the raking and scraping sounds, the dark bends and curves, and the terrifying G-Force around Shuttlecock, as the toboggan was sucked up onto ice walls and then whisked back down. And afterwards, I have never felt elation like it; I could actually feel the adrenalin coursing through every capillary in my body, as I let out a great hissing "Yessssssssss! I did it!", before my respectable time of 73.25 seconds was announced and I felt kisses of congratulations from all around.

Again, more at the link.

The dangers of the course are very real, particularly the notorious 'Shuttlecock Corner', where many riders have come to grief. Here's a video clip of many of the crashes on the Cresta Run during the 2009/10 season, including many at Shuttlecock Corner (which is unmistakeable - look for the piles of hay laid on the snow to slow riders being catapulted off the course!).

Let's leave the final word to the late Marilyn Monroe, who famously telegraphed the Shuttlecock Club (membership of which is restricted to those who've wiped out at Shuttlecock Corner) as follows:








Peter

Linguist, lunatic, or moonbat supreme?

My mind is truly boggled by the story (found via a link at Rev. Paul's place) of a New Zealand 'linguist' (?) who's written and self-published an encyclopedia of the Tlingit language . . . having never traveled to Alaska, or even met or spoken with any Tlingit natives! Needless to say, her book's utterly useless. Station KCAW in Sitka, Alaska reports:

The problem is: The language in the book is not recognizable by contemporary scholars, or Native Tlingit speakers.

In a world as small as that of Tlingit scholarship, the appearance of Sally-Ann Lambert’s “Hlingit Word Encyclopedia: The Origin of Copper” came as quite a surprise.

So did the appearance of Sally-Ann Lambert, who traveled to Sitka in mid-January to launch the book.

No one had heard of her: Not the Alaska State Museum, the Sealaska Heritage Institute, or the very active group of Tlingit language teachers in the Sitka Native Education Program.

Nancy Douglas is the Cultural Program Director at the Sitka School District.

“For those of us that have been studying Tlingit for forty-plus years and working with elders, I think it was surprising not to have heard of her or her work. We’re a pretty tight-knit community when it comes to language-learning, and open to sharing our points of view with everybody and networking with those of us that are language teachers and language learners. So, I guess it was surprise that drew me in to going to the book launch.”

The Hlingit Word Encyclopedia is the second of nine volumes planned by Lambert. Her first work, a dictionary of Maori, was published a few years ago.

Lambert was born in New Zealand, but grew up in Samoa, where she developed an aptitude for language. Lambert turned her attention to Tlingit when she acquired a copy of a book by the late 19th/early 20th century ethnographer J. R. Swanton.

“I think often I’m led spiritually, and I don’t make my decisions with the full knowledge of the situation. Basically the book was given to me with Tlingit Myths & Texts by John Swanton, and Tlingit language is fortunate to have that resource.”

Swanton is indeed a classic, early ethnography of Tlingit, and a good starting point for the study of Tlingit culture, from a western perspective. “The Origin of Copper” is one of the stories he recorded, and Lambert uses it as a basis to parse the grammar and culture of the Tlingit.

This probably wasn’t the best strategy.

There's more at the link.

I think the 'money quote' from the article is: "I think often I’m led spiritually, and I don’t make my decisions with the full knowledge of the situation". Yep . . . but led by which spirit? Juracán, perhaps? That would fit in with her statement, elsewhere in the article, that she was "she was pulled to Tlingit by its 'polarity' with the great cultures of South America". The Caribbean god of chaos and disorder seems a perfectly appropriate spiritual leader for that!





Peter

Doofus Of The Day #570

Today's winner is from Russia.

Taking corruption to uncharted heights, a military official in central Russia has sold an airfield for a bribe.

Andrei Usok, a procurement officer with the Defense Ministry, sold to an unspecified company some 4,000 slabs of concrete making up the landing strip of a military airfield in Bryansk region, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Usok made 1 million rubles ($33,000) on the deal, but the damages, which rendered the airfield unusable, stood at 48 million rubles, the Prosecutor General’s Office reported on its website.

The officer is facing up to 12 years behind bars or a fine of between 70 million and 90 million rubles over the case. The investigation is ongoing.

Ohhh-kaay . . .

I've heard reports of peculation, corruption and crookedness involving the illicit sale of all sorts of things from a great many military forces - tanks, trucks, guns, ammunition, even the odd aircraft or two . . . but an entire bloody airfield? One has to admire Mr. Usok's chutzpah, if nothing else! Just how did he think he was going to get away with it? It's not as if someone wouldn't notice, after all - the next plane to try to land there would be asking pointed questions about the whereabouts of the runway!





Peter

Another appeal for an even nannier state

I'm so tired of nanny-staters I could spit . . . but they keep coming out of the woodwork. The latest is Lester Spence, who writes at CNN:

My View: Why not a right to a college education?

Editor’s Note: Lester K. Spence is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University. His first book Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics was published in June 2011, and was one of the first books to empirically examine the political effect of hip-hop on black communities.

. . .

What if ... the president ... proposed policies geared towards embedding higher education as an individual right. What if, instead of getting a tax write-off after you’ve already paid your son/daughter’s tuition, you instead didn’t have to worry about education because the government would pay for it?

It’s socialism!

It’s too expensive!

I want to take the socialism critique first. The reality is that even here we routinely spend a significant amount of our government’s resources on subsidies, on what tea party supporters might call “socialist policies.” For instance, in 2009 the government spent almost $86 billion on home ownership subsidies in the form of the mortgage interest deduction, subsidizing the home purchases of almost 35 million citizens. In 2010 the government spent almost $104 billion.

Furthermore, as the president noted in the State of the Union address, the federal government routinely spends billions of dollars in corporate subsidies, helping them research and develop new products, helping them build new plants, helping them train new workers. If we wouldn’t think of these policies as socialist, why should we necessarily consider a policy to pay for college tuition socialist?

The second critique is a bit more thoughtful. If tuition and fees are too expensive for parents, wouldn’t placing this burden on the government be exorbitantly expensive, too expensive to even consider?

As of 2004 it would have cost approximately $30 billion to pay for the tuition and fees of everyone currently attending a public college, whether that college be four-year like the University of Michigan, or two-year, like neighboring Washtenaw Community College. Even if we double that figure now due to inflation, we’re still talking about spending less money on college tuition for every student able to get into college, than we routinely do to subsidize home purchases.

Such a policy for me is a no-brainer. It significantly reduces the financial burden on parents and on students. No longer would a father and mother have to consider taking a second mortgage on their home or perhaps a second job to put their child through school. No longer would three college roommates have to have eight jobs between them (as my roommates and myself did in 1990). President Obama didn’t mention working class or poor parents at all - no longer would college be out of reach for much of the 99%.

There's more at the link.

Where does one start?

• I don't care how much the federal government is spending on subsidies to encourage home ownership or corporate development. I see nothing whatsoever in the constitution authorizing such subsidies in the first place! Why should there be even more unconstitutional subsidies for yet another unconstitutional so-called 'right'?
• So what if it would 'only' cost $30 billion, or $60 billion, to pay for all college-level education each year? Why should taxpayers have to bear that burden in the first place? Besides, the US is technically bankrupt, already $15 trillion in debt and adding over $1½ trillion more every year. Where are we going to find the money when we can't even afford our existing programs?
  
• Why shouldn't college be out of reach for many people? What is it about college that's so magical? Look at the statistics. US News pointed out in 2009: "Thirty percent of college and university students drop out after their first year. Half never graduate, and college completion rates in the United States have been stalled for more than three decades." That's a huge chunk of those proposed subsidies that would be thrown away, every year. Why the hell should my taxes be wasted in that way? Of those who graduate, how many have useless degrees in subjects such as 'gender studies' or 'underwater basket-weaving'? I see no reason whatsoever to subsidize such wastes of time!
  
• Why demand yet another government program? The government's already way too big for its boots, and has busted out far beyond its constitutional limitations. We need to be shrinking government, not expanding the damn thing!
  

I'm afraid I have to write off Prof. Spence's views as yet another example of academic moonbattery. Sadly, there are far too many who'll read them and ask themselves, "Why not?" - forgetting that, as always, someone else has to pay for their 'good' ideas! TANSTAAFL, as the late, great Robert A. Heinlein warned us . . . but some have never learned (or refuse to learn) that lesson.





Peter

Alphadog goes walkies!

Tonight's posts (see below) have been largely technology-oriented, so I'll conclude with a video clip in the same vein.

We've visited Boston Dynamics' Bigdog and LS3 (also known as Alphadog) robotic transports in these pages before. The latter has now been sufficiently developed to take the field in practical, long-distance tests, and it seems to be doing well. Here's a video report showing its progress.

Alphadog (in its present form) can carry 400 pounds of cargo for up to 20 miles across country, accompanying (for example) a military patrol and freeing them from much of the weight of their kit. It's planned to make it respond to voice commands in future iterations; but I'm not sure that's such a good idea. After all, what happens if the enemy tells it to "Go away!" in the middle of a firefight, just when you need it to bring you more ammo?





Peter

Doofus Of The Day #569

Today's award goes to the operator of a closed-circuit television security camera in England. The Telegraph reports:

An undercover police officer "chased himself round the streets" for 20 minutes after a CCTV operator mistook him for [a] suspect.

. . .

The details of the operation[al] blunder were leaked to Police magazine, which is published by the Police Federation, this week by a senior officer who witnessed the embarrassing incident.

Sussex police were unable to provide further details of the incident, the officers involved or where it occurred.

The anonymous officer, believed to be the PC's [police constable's] sergeant, told the monthly magazine: "An officer who joined a team in Sussex as a new probationary officer was soon very keen to do any plain-clothes operations and be as proactive as possible.

"He would be waiting at the end of his shift hoping to be unleashed for a further couple of hours of plain-clothes duties.

"On one such occasion in a little market town in Sussex which has suffered a spate of town centre shop break-ins, officers were on plain-clothed foot patrol when a report was received of a suspect male in one of the side roads.”

"The CCTV operator soon had the suspect on camera and everywhere he saw the male the keen PC was on his heels – radioing in to say he was in the same street.”

He added: "Every time the man darted in to another side alleyway, the PC was turning immediately into the same alleyway, but every time the CCTV operator asked what he could see there was no trace."

It was at this point that the sergeant entered the control room where he recognised the junior officer.

"With the sergeant's sides aching from laughter he pointed out to the PC that the operator had been watching him unaware that he was a plain-clothes officer – thus the PC had been chasing himself round the streets."

There's more at the link.

"The UK has more CCTV cameras per capita than any European country" - but if this is an example of how well they use them, they may as well rip them all out, for all the good they're doing!





Peter

Bio-compatible diamonds for a bionic eye?

I'm constantly amazed by the strides technology is taking in many directions - limited, it seems, only by the fertile imaginations of researchers. The latest example is reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.

IT TAKES up to 3.3 billion years for nature to make a diamond. But physics professor Steven Prawer can cook them up in five days using the microwave-like reactor at his Parkville laboratory.

"They are made with methane and hydrogen," Professor Prawer said. "You cook them in the microwave oven on high for five days and then you have lovely little diamonds."

The diamonds - which come out black because of their tiny size which scatters the light - are likely to prove a key ingredient in Australia's $42 million quest to develop a bionic eye.

Diamonds have long been used in the body due to their durability and low rejection rate, with diamond coating applied to everything from heart valves to hip joints. They are also a common insulator. But Professor Prawer, inaugural head of the Melbourne Materials Institute at Melbourne University, said diamonds have never been used to stimulate the nerves.

"We have discovered a form of diamond that we can make which is bio-compatible and very good as a stimulating electrode, which means we can put an electrical signal onto it that then causes the neurons to fire and get a response," he said.

It's this novel approach being taken by the multi-disciplinary team behind Bionic Vision Australia that has researchers most excited. "I don't think anyone ever believed that diamonds could be used to stimulate [the ganglion cells] … this is a uniquely Australian approach," Professor Prawer said.

He said establishing that diamonds could be used to stimulate nerves could have future applications in the treatment of other conditions such as Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.

There's more at the link. The first prototype 'bionic eye' is expected to be ready for human testing next year.

It boggles my mind to think how many different areas of technological development had to come together for this project. Synthetic diamond production; electrical conductivity; brain and nervous system anatomy, physiology and chemistry; optical sensor development . . . and they're all going to come together in a tiny system that will be implanted into the human body to replace what Nature gave us. Furthermore, as the article points out, this is just the start. If they can get all these elements working together successfully, who knows what treatments may be possible a few years or decades from now?

For all the problems of our modern world, it's still an exciting time to be alive.

Peter

When security cameras . . . aren't!

It seems that many thousands of purchasers of security cameras made by one particular company weren't nearly as secure as they thought. The Verge reports:

A few weeks ago, a blog called Console Cowboys exposed a security vulnerability in some models of Trendnet home security cameras. Following the instructions on the site, thousands of streaming personal IP cameras can be accessed. Links to the compromised feeds spread quickly on message boards like Reddit and 4chan, where the adolescent quest for the surreptitiously-viewed nipple kicked into high gear.

Of course, nudity was found: a woman taking off her pajamas in her bedroom, a young mother standing next to a baby crib at night. Screenshots were made and posted to 4chan for teenage boys to ogle. These cameras were purchased by people who believed they would be making their home or workplace more secure. Instead, they became victims of an intimate and personal invasion of privacy.

. . .

While many IP cameras have open feeds that are semi-public and don’t require passwords, a close look at the Trendnet firmware revealed code that can be appended to the IP address of the camera, creating a URL of the camera’s feed that bypasses password authentication. The author of the Console Cowboys post, Someluser, was surprised it even worked:

I can't really believe this is something that is intended by the manufacturer. Lets see who is out there :)

Other available cameras were found by searching shodanhq.com, a semi-shady site that catalogs open devices. Some of the more interesting camera feeds included a laundromat in Los Angeles, a bar and grill in Virginia, living rooms in Korea and Hong Kong, offices in Moscow, a Newark man watching the football game in a Giants jersey, and the inside of a turtle cage.

Console Cowboys posted its instructions on accessing the cameras on January 10, and over the next two days a list of links to over 1,000 camera feeds appeared on Pastebin, a free text storage site popular among programmers and 4channers for storing and sharing snippets of code, Occupy movement screeds, the anti-Scientology manifestos of Anonymous, and the assorted Dane Cook joke. In an email, Someluser said that he was not responsible for creating the long list of links or posting them to other sites. "I would imagine these lists were created by readers and other individuals who have since created script enhancements on the original findings and code....It is hard to say how it ended up on 4chan, it is not a site I frequent."

The Pastebin link list appeared on Reddit’s security forum within a day, and on 4chan’s /b/ board sometime that week. Currently, the list has had over 87,000 hits. Each camera feed may have been viewed by hundreds or thousands of people.

There's more at the link, including screen-capture images taken by many of the 'hacked' cameras.

Trendnet has released a firmware fix for the affected cameras, but that's unlikely to reach all of them. Many of their owners and/or users aren't the type of people who frequent technology Web sites, or are likely to become aware of the problem through news media reports (which are - at least so far - conspicuous by their absence).

Moral of the story: don't trust your security to devices that may not be secure themselves!

Peter

Rare earth elements are in the news again

Back in 2010, I wrote three articles about the supply of rare earth elements, China's dominance of the world's supply, and efforts to develop alternative sources. It looks as if Japan, which is wholly dependent on imports to satisfy its need for rare earth elements, is taking the lead in developing new techniques and technologies for their use.

The Mainichi Daily News had two reports today about the subject. The first highlights a new recycling technology.

Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said Wednesday it has developed a device that extracts rare earth elements from used household air conditioners and hopes it will help in coping with shortages of rare earth elements and their high prices.

. . .

It can automatically take apart air-conditioner compressors and separate neodymium magnets from their rotors, according to the firm.

The collected rare earth elements will be provided to magnet makers for reuse in products.

. . .

The company raised the prices of new air-conditioner models that went on sale in November from those already on the market, citing the soaring prices of rare earth elements.

There's more at the link.

The second article brings news of a Japanese government initiative to develop techniques that use less rare earth elements in manufacturing.

The Japanese industry ministry said Wednesday it will offer a total of around 5 billion yen [about US $65 million] in subsidies for the development of technologies and other activities aimed at reducing the use of rare earth elements, amid concern over China's export restrictions on the minerals.

Selecting 49 projects of companies, universities and other institutions as eligible to receive the subsidies, the ministry aims to reduce the use of dysprosium, used for motors in hybrid vehicles and other products, by 30 percent in two years.

. . .

Among the selected projects was a method to recycle dysprosium from discarded refrigerators and air conditioners, aimed at recycling 13 tons of the rare earth element in fiscal 2015. Projects to develop technologies for creating products with a reduced amount of dysprosium were also chosen for the subsidies.

Again, more at the link.

Extraction of rare earth elements is difficult, costly and involves a high risk of pollution, while Chinese dominance of their production is dangerous from a strategic point of view. Given their critical importance in today's high-technology economy, one can only hope that both of these Japanese efforts are a success, and that this sort of innovation spreads to other countries.

Peter

Extreme skiing indeed!

The Extreme Sports HD channel on YouTube has compiled this presentation of what it calls 'Extreme Skiing'. It certainly looks like it! I recommend watching it in full-screen mode.

That looks entirely too extreme for my aging sense of adventure . . . but I daresay the skiers had fun!

Peter

The danger of older car tires

For the past couple of days we've discussed various issues surrounding car tires, first here and then here. Today something else came to my attention - a danger of which I'd not previously been aware.

It seems that tires can be safely stored and used for several years after their date of manufacture. However, after that 'safe period', the rubber and other materials used in their construction can deteriorate, leading to unsafe conditions such as tread separation, etc. In 2008, ABC News reported:

Despite years of study that point to a mounting toll of deaths and injuries attributed to aged tires, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has refused to issue a warning to consumers on the issue.

"We are extraordinarily disappointed by the fact that they are saying, 'We know this is a safety problem,' but they won't tell consumers," said auto safety expert Sean Kane.

As tires age, they can dry out and become brittle, leading to potential catastrophic tire tread separations. Kane's private research firm Safety Research & Strategies has so far tracked 167 vehicle crashes it attributes to aged tires, with 192 injuries and 139 fatalities. "An old tire is like a ticking time bomb in many ways," said Kane. "You don't know what's going on inside it. That's what makes it so dangerous."

NHTSA has known about the risks of aged tires for years, and in a 2007 report to Congress the agency acknowledged that "tire aging is a serious safety issue." NHTSA's report noted that insurance statistics from a number of states showed 84 percent of tire-related claims were for "tires over 6 years old." NHTSA refused a request, however, from Ford Motor Co. to impose a six-year shelf life on tires, based on the company's independent research.

"We have rejected that notion," said NHTSA spokesperson Ray Tyson, pointing to the fact that some tire and auto manufacturers have issued their own shelf life recommendations for tires, which he said is "sufficient." Bridgestone/Firestone, Michelin and other tire manufacturers have issued bulletins recommending a 10-year shelf life for tires. Auto companies, such as Ford, Chrysler and Toyota, have issued 6-year recommendations.

There's more at the link.

Intrigued, I asked my contact at a local dealer about this. To my surprise, he was hesitant to answer, at least in the hearing of other managers. Eventually we managed to get a moment of privacy, and he informed me that age does, indeed, appear to be a factor in tire safety: but tire wholesalers and retailers typically don't want to acknowledge it, because they have older tires in stock, and they wouldn't be able to sell them if the problem were more widely known. As it is, they can and do sell them, and if some of them exhibit problems they'll replace them under warranty. That's cheaper than trashing all of them, because some older tires (particularly those fitted to vehicles that don't drive very often, or very far, or very fast) might not give any trouble.

I was pretty upset to hear that tire suppliers may be risking the lives of their customers in this way, and asked him how one could identify the age of a tire. He pointed me to a very useful British Web site, Carbibles.com, which includes a section labeled 'Wheel & Tyre Bible' (yes, Britain spells 'tire' with a 'y' instead of an 'i'). This is packed with information about any and all aspects of tires and their use. Here's what it says about tire dates.

DOT Codes and the 6-year shelf life

As part of the DOT code (G in the tyre marking above), there is a tyre manufacture date stamped on the sidewall. Oddly this code is sometimes only one one sidewall so you might need to get under your car and look at the inward-facing side of the tyre. Take a look at yours - there will be a three- or four-digit code. This code denotes when the tyre was manufactured, and as a rule-of-thumb, you should never use tyres more than 6 years old. The rubber in tyres degrades over time, irrespective of whether the tyre is being used or not. When you get a tyre change, if you can, see if the tyre place will allow you to inspect the new tyres first. It's not uncommon for these shops to have stuff in stock which is more than 6 years old. The tyre might look brand new, but it will delaminate or have some other failure within weeks of being put on a vehicle.

Reading the code. The code is pretty simple. The three-digit code was used for tyres manufactured before 2000. So for example 1 7 6 means it was manufactured in the 17th week of 6th year of the decade. In this case it means 1986. For tyres manufactured in the 90's, the same code holds true but there is a little triangle after the DOT code. So for this example, a tyre manufactured in the 17th week of 1996 would have the code 176∆ .

After 2000, the code was switched to a 4-digit code. Same rules apply, so for example 3 0 0 3 means the tyre was manufactured in the 30th week of 2003.

If the tyre has a 3-digit code, do not buy it. It will be too old.

There's much more at the link. I really think that entire Web page is essential reading, for safety reasons; so please take the time to click over there and learn more about the subject. Some of its information may not apply to the USA or the country in which you're reading it, but you can use that information as a starting point to find out where your national markings and/or regulations differ. (For US readers, see this page at the Tire Rack Web site for further information about US age codes.)

Anyway, there's something else to think about when checking your existing tires, or planning to purchase new ones - and it's certainly a strong argument against buying older used tires!

Peter