Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Monday, November 9, 2015

CWT and Other Stuff

Renting a car. It makes a sound thalt sounds like a distant siren. Eck! told me thaat it's the sound of a "continuously-variable transmission". Heh, more like "continually whining". Car gets decent mileage, but that whining would drive me nuts.

Also test-using an iPad. What a hostile piece of shit. If it were mine, I'd prop it up against a berm and shoot it. I can't even get the frackiang cursor to move back to fix a typo.

Ten minutes of futzung and now it does. Crimus. This is about as easy to figure out as String Theory. And now it won't move again, except to the end of the line.

Rot in Hell, Steve Jobs.

11 comments:

Doug T. said...

Logitech makes a keyboard for it which makes life a lot easier. I haven't figured out why my bluetooth mouse doesn't work, however.

CenterPuke88 said...

iOS is very experience biased...once you figure stuff out, things are easy...you can do stuff initially, but you don't know/understand the short-cuts.

I have a CVT in my Accord. It's not thrilling, but it works very well. The problems with a CVT are adjustment and designs. After you adjust to an engine speed unrelated to vehicle speed, it stops being so confusing...the design can mitigate much of this issue with good sound deadening...sounds like your rental failed that.

The New York Crank said...

Every time Mac insists I upgrade my operating system, I regret it. Once, it made my computer incompatible with the versions of Microsoft Word and Quark on my hard drive. Upgrading turned out to me a mistake worth over $1,000.

Most recently, the latest Mac upgrade knocked out my Magic Jack and played havoc with my e-mail. You say Steve Jobs should rot in hell? I am willing to go to hell, if it means that once an hour I can pierce Jobs' roasting body with a sharp stick.

Yours very crankily,
The New York Crank

Comrade Misfit said...

It's some flavor of Nissan. Meh.

Comrade Misfit said...

Nissan Altima. Frigging bastards can't even spell.

Keaaukane said...

Nissan's made up names are better than Toyota's real words. Tacoma? Seattle's ugly step-sister? Cressida? Famous for being unfaithful? They must have access to people who are fluent in English, but apparently they don't care.

CenterPuke88 said...

Yea, the Nissan CVT's are universally panned. The Honda units are about as good as it gets, but could use some extra noise deadening. I suspect the Altima rental is a base model, with the sound deadening probably consisting of a couple of pages of Japanese schoolgirl manga between the floor and the carpet. At least the CVT's seem better than the newer 8+ speed automatics that hunt for gears like a hyperactive whack-a-mole game.

Anonymous said...

I did about 1500 miles in a rented Sentra recently. It drove well and no discernible noise from the tranny. It will on the shortlist when I retire my '87 Beemer.

Comrade Misfit said...

Did it have a CVT or a geared transmission?

UncleBob said...

I own a 2009 Maxima with a CVT. I panned the similar aged Altimas with CVTs but not because of noise. I couldn't stand how the transmission controls insisted on winding up the engine RPMs to maneuver around city traffic. It was like there's a rubber band connecting my foot to the gas pedal. The Maxima had way more low RPM power so the CVT isn't always downshifting to get a little power. I've never noticed any CVT noise. I have learned that my throttle position has a hefty influence on the eventual engine RPM, which the CVT can contorl. If I stop on the accelerator, the engine will get to red-line as soon as possible and then jerk the car (starting around 35 mph) and maintain red-line RPM until I let up.

CenterPuke88 said...

UncleBob, most CVT's work exactly like that. A CVT has no gears, just two variable diameter pulleys that get yo-yoed around to make the best use of the engine power. You stomp on the gas in a CVT, and you get max power RPM and the CVT continuously adjusting the ratio to keep the engine on the top of the power curve as the car speed increases. Other throttle positions, as you noted, chose other points in the power band, as the CPU judges appropriate to that demand. The craziest one I've seen is the "sport" CVT that you can make pretend it's a 6 to 9 speed transmission. Simply because of the way that works, the car will accelerate more slowly...but people will pay for that option.

I have the huge advantage of an Accord Hybrid, so I get lots of low volume/no volume time as the EV mode kicks in. I don't love the CVT, but with it and the battery I get 45+ mpg all the time...hard to dislike.