One of the big draws of the new electric vehicles is their feature of one-pedal driving. This is like the cars at amusement parks that kids get to drive and steer, but the steering is limited to the rail that guides them around the track and the car slows down and stops once you let off the gas.
In the case of electric cars, the car can slow down and stop if you let off the accelerator pedal. A lot of people seem to like it, and it certainly helps prolong the life of the brakes.
But as I was driving my old gas-powered car around yesterday with a stuck parking brake, I realized that just about every car has a one-pedal driving feature.
Go ahead and try it. In my car I have a handbrake lever I pull up, but in the family minivan it’s a foot pedal on the far left that you press. Activate the park brake about halfway, then go drive around with just the gas pedal. On my car at least, it slowed down and came to a stop without having the press the brake pedal. It also held itself on a shallow hill.
The only downside is that it lowers fuel efficiency, which is the opposite effect of what it does in an electric or hybrid car. It also shortens the life of the brake pads (or shoes in my case).
But hey, you have one-pedal driving just like all the fancy people these days.
Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Drive the donkey and go on; do not slow down the pace for me unless I tell you.”
2 Kings 4:24
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One of the more fascinating things about today’s modern world is the naming of medicines. There are a lot of medicines, and there are a lot of new names needed for new medicines, and I’m always impressed on how someone can invent a new word that’s not like another existing word.
I mean, some of the names do sound ridiculous, but they are unique and memorable. It seems I would mispronounce half of them if I didn’t hear it pronounced in the ad.
I did look it up, and there are agencies that the drug manufacturers use to come up with the names. It sounds like a lot of work, and a lot of regulations for drug names. It would be a lot easier to name a product without legal constraints. But on the other hand I think that is how you get these uniquely memorable names.
I just know if I tried to come up with a name for a new medicine I’d probably do best by typing a bunch of clumps of random letters and picking one of those that sounded right. It’s hard to think of a new name that doesn’t sound like anything else, because trying to think of things brings to mind the words that already do exist.
Perhaps those million monkeys are actually at the naming agencies, having not gotten close to writing Shakespeare.
The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows except the one who receives it.
Revelation 2:17
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I’ve mentioned people leaving bad reviews before. Not reviews with a bad rating of the product, but the review itself was poorly done. Here’s a previous example of how to write reviews.
But I was looking at something on the Home Depot website and of all the reviews, this one had me shaking my head. For the most part, people who are bad at reviewing things don’t know it. I think they mean well but are clueless as to the uselessness of their review.
This guy, however, was not clueless. He just straight out admitted he shouldn’t be leaving a review. But yet he still left one. I can only guess he was either being blackmailed or threatened with violence that he had to leave a review right then. Or maybe he got some kickback for leaving a 5-star review and that was the last day the kickback would be available.
He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them.
Psalm 147:4
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I was behind a Honda Element at a stoplight last week, and I was mildly amused by its license plate
Here is what I saw:
And here it is zoomed in a slightly enhanced:
So there you have it – the elements are Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Honda.
Not love, despite what that movie tried to claim.
looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!
2 Peter 3:12
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This post is a repeat – I’m phoning it in today because I’m enjoying the holiday.
Happy Birthday
A M E R I C AA M E R I C AA M E R I C A!
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, The people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.
Psalm 33:12
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It’s mid-to-late June, and it looks like there’s snow on the ground here in southern Michigan. In northern Michigan it might be actual snow, but here it is just the cottonwood trees shedding.
I didn’t get a good picture of the fluffy white “cotton” falling gently through the air, but this is what it looks like after it lands.
Unfortunately, it does not pack well into snowballs, nor can you make fabric out of it. It’s just for visual interest, and for finding out who has seasonal allergies.
Like snow in summer and like rain in harvest, So honor is not fitting for a fool.
Proverbs 26:1
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Here are some thoughts I jotted down that aren’t quite sufficient for their own individual blog posts. If you’re the type of person who likes Twitter, pretend each of these is a tweet.
- Mom has a couple of dictionaries she won back in school for being first place in the spelling bee. I think that’s backwards – the spelling bee loser should get the dictionary.
- Someone asked me “If Cinderella’s glass slipper was a perfect fit, how did it fall off?” And the answer is that it was a slipper not a sticker.
- The person who coined the phrase “when one door closes, another door opens” must have had a refrigerator like our old one. The top freezer door kept popping open when the main fridge door is shut vigorously. This one was compliments of Delta – I don’t know if he made it up or heard it somewhere.
- The mosquitoes here are pretty bad, but the other day no matter how many I swatted I kept seeing more. It turns out I just had a bunch of eye floaters, no wonder I couldn’t hit them.
- What if I want further ado?
How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
Luke 6:42
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This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
