Simanaitis Says

On cars, old, new and future; science & technology; vintage airplanes, computer flight simulation of them; Sherlockiana; our English language; travel; and other stuff

GREAT (AND NEAT-O) LAKES

THE INTERESTING FACTS website offered a tidbit that the Great Lakes hold more that 20 percent of the world’s fresh water, six quadrillion gallons of it: “That’s so much water,” … Continue reading

May 8, 2024 · 4 Comments

QUITE AN EVENTFUL YEAR—1994

“WHAT WITH FIRESTORMS, EARTHQUAKES, MUD SLIDES and, as I begin this report, torrential rains, flooding, even a tornado, Southern California had hardly been a boring place of late.” So wrote … Continue reading

May 7, 2024 · 2 Comments

HOW’S NORWAY DOING WITH EVS?    PART 2

YESTERDAY, TWO FASCINATING ARTICLES yielded tidbits about Norway and its dramatic rise of electric vehicle sales from 1 percent in 2014 to 83 percent last year as consumers responded to … Continue reading

May 6, 2024 · 3 Comments

HOW’S NORWAY DOING WITH EVS?    PART 1

DEMOGRAPHICS AS WELL AS GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES have a lot to do with Norway’s love affair with electric vehicles. Here, in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow, are tidbits gleaned … Continue reading

May 5, 2024 · 2 Comments

HOME RERUN TIME—CELEBRATING A SCRAWNY GUY “WANTING TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY”    PART 2

YESTERDAY WE BEGAN GLEANING tidbits about Elisha Cook Jr., who is typically recalled as Kasper Gutman’s psychotic sidekick in The Maltese Falcon and as a doomed informer in The Big … Continue reading

May 4, 2024 · Leave a comment

HOME RERUN TIME—CELEBRATING A SCRAWNY GUY “WANTING TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY”    PART 1

I’VE SAVED SEVERAL CLASSIC FILMS FOR HOME RERUNS, each re-viewed when the spirit moves me. These include Pandora’s Box, the 1929 silent flick (its operatic version Alban Berg’s Lulu); Bogart/Astor/Greenstreet/Lorre’s … Continue reading

May 3, 2024 · 2 Comments

PEDALIN’ IT ALL OVER TOWN

R&T CALLED IT “the lightest, most compact and most economical Maserati we have ever tested.” This and the following images from R&T, April 1974.  It was fifty years ago, and … Continue reading

May 2, 2024 · 3 Comments

THERE’S A WORD FOR IT—THOUGH NOT IN ENGLISH

MARIKA PRICE SPITULSKI SHARES “16 Heartwarming Words and Phrases That Don’t Have an English Equivalent,” in Nice News, April 27,  2024. Here’s a selection of them, some new to me … Continue reading

May 1, 2024 · 1 Comment

THE GREENEST CARS OF 2024—OVERALL

EACH YEAR THE AMERICAN COUNCIL for an Energy-Efficient Economy ranks cars on an overall measure. Not just the energy used in their propulsion, but also that employed in their manufacture … Continue reading

April 30, 2024 · 2 Comments

FONTS CAN SAVE TREES

“HARPERCOLLINS MADE A TINY TWEAK to its Book Design—and Has Saved Thousands of Trees as a Result,” reports Elizabeth Segran in the Fast Company website, April 2, 2024. What’s more, … Continue reading

April 29, 2024 · 1 Comment