“YouTuber” Spotlight – Roadkill

I think it’s about time I gave a shoutout to a show that has been a big influence on The Wacky World Of MultimediaJay even though it’s not related to computers.  The very concept of what Roadkill is as a car show though is a total ringer.

“This is the show where we play with cars, and you point and laugh,” say the hosts David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan at the very beginning of episode 1.  This simple idea has been something that has completely worked.  🙂  Even though Roadkill cars are usually pieces of junk that these guys are doing everything they can to squeeze any amount of decent performance out of (sounds like what I do with computers 🙂 ) it still makes for a more than entertaining car show, even if you don’t tinker around with cars all that much.  😀

What First Got Me Watchin’:

The first episode I ever saw was something near and dear to folks like myself who grew up in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of hicks out in the woods – the Cheap Truck Challenge.  😀

The “Channel” Today:

Still under the Motor Trend umbrella on their variety channel and as of 2017 sponsored by Dodge, Roadkill is a show series I highly recommend that one binge watch.  As a matter of fact I’ve recently seen the series pop up on Netflix, but the show’s still on YouTube and still sticking to its guns.  🙂

I particularly like these TV-inspired “little web shows” on YouTube and echo Freiburger’s take on the whole “staying on the web” thing where television can be pretty snooty nowadays but in terms of creative freedom YouTube is still where it’s at.  Plus, notice what’s happening here.  As much as the show features these guys tinkering with cars, it’s in the context of events they have going on, like a drag race they want to go to or see if they can get a beatermobile all the way to Alaska from California, much like how my computer tinkering is the day to day response to things I want to do, so it’s not straight up computer videos like everyone else, but there’s a certain concentrated coolness to it.

2017 is a Semper Reformanda year of reform for me.  One of the things I might do later this year is retool everything to more closely resemble how this show does things.  I like their assertive “guys having fun tinkering with stuff” approach, and think I could learn a few things from them.  I’ll leave this Ethan Meixsell track here as a possible main theme should I choose to take this path…  🙂

Am I The Only One Who Thinks Making Car Products Look Like Five Hour Energy Is A Bad Idea?

…no words necessary…  😛

http://consumerist.com/2013/02/19/do-not-drink-these-energy-shots-unless-you-are-a-car/

The disturbing part is, even The Consumerist seems to be simply focusing on the “people are stupid” part of this issue and not the fact that these car products being sold in a gas station are blatantly being merchandised like they’re something like Five Hour Energy or something.  Can you really blame people for mixing the two up when…..  just look at how the darn things are being presented!!!  😛

This is a people problem alright – some marketer who thought this was a good idea should no longer have a job.  😛

Tesla-Hatred In The Media Needs To Stop

I absolutely can’t stand this mainstream media hatred of Tesla Motors that has existed over the past several years.  Several years ago, when the first plans for the Tesla Roadster started popping up on the Internet, you had to dig to find anything at all about this fantastic machine, while the media was utterly swooning over hilarious jokes like the Chevy Volt.  A few years later, this searing hatred hasn’t stopped, but at least the Roadster found its way into Gran Turismo 5 as a gimmick car.  😛

Now fast forward to today, and there’s quite a fight underway between a New York Times reporter who apparently wasn’t too fond of one of his recent Tesla test drives and Elon Musk, the CEO of the company.  After finding out that the Tesla Roadster’s appearance on Top Gear was sabotaged from the beginning by a loaded anti-electric-car script that was written for the show, media cars now have data-loggers in them, and the data recorded from the NYT test drive conflicts very heavily with what the reporter wrote about.  😛

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive

Ahhhh the utter hatred of technology.  I’ll know which side is more serious though when I start hearing about lawsuits.  Defamation is quite a serious thing, though the first defense against any charges of the sort is Truth.  Still though even if this doesn’t go this far, it’s quite a war of words.

Yet a couple of years ago before the Chevy Volt started not-selling the media was all aglow over its incremental innovation nonsense that made it barely more than a traditional hybrid, yet the knock-your-socks-off innovations found in the Tesla Roadster barely received any coverage outside of the geek world.  Ahhh the tangled web people weave when media bias comes to town.  😛

“That Distinct Choking Sound Coming From Detroit…”

Can’t say I didn’t see this coming.  Looks like GM is having to cut way back on folks related to the struggling Chevy Volt.

New York Post – GM Squeezes A Lemon (Editorial Of Course 🙂 )

Funny how people are getting all political about this saying it’s an Obama failure.  I’d say the blame should fall squarely on the folks who designed that thing and an utter lack of knock-your-socks-off innovation for its poor sales, along with the stories about the thing bursting into flames at times of course.  😛

I’ve seen this coming for literally years.  When the Chevy Volt was being utterly swooned over all over the place by government folks and the mainstream media, I knew it was a dud that wouldn’t make it very far out of the starting gate, because a few years earlier I had been introduced to Tesla Motors and the Tesla Roadster.

It was the Tesla Roadster that introduced me to the potential of good electric cars and innovative features like regenerative braking and a solar roof that could put some charge on the batteries while the unit was sitting in parking lots on sunny days and help cut down on how much the car had to be plugged in.  It was the Roadster that also introduced me to the idea of a transmission-less car with more room and a simpler mechanical design that had fewer parts to break – a direct answer to the “technological stagnation of the internal combustion engine” that folks like Ralph Nader have chimed in about over the years.

The Volt?  Well it introduced me to just how gimmicky a company can be when trying to sell an alternative fuel car with how it’s considered an “electric car” instead of a hybrid solely because the backup gas motor doesn’t physically turn the wheels.  😛  That’s not technology – just tacky marketing especially in the face of a far more innovative product like what Tesla makes.  Sure Tesla’s cars are basically playtoys for rich people right now, but that’s how things work with new technology.  Given enough time, as with other forms of tech that go mainstream, they’ll probably find a way to get those cars down to the prices of today’s gas cars.  One of my life goals is actually to say goodbye to gasoline at some point with a car I own, and I’m thinking electric might be the best option whenever that becomes feasible.  🙂

Technology is about innovation, but innovation most certainly ISN’T silly little incremental improvements to what’s already there.  There needs to be a distinct “wow” coming from the audience for things to really be innovative.  People try to improve stuff all the time, and can succeed in little bits and pieces too, but those big jawdroppers that make society rethink how it views certain things – that’s worth acknowledging and paying attention too.

Speaking of which, here’s the only electric cars worth paying attention to, right here.  🙂

http://www.teslamotors.com/