jawfish

Just Tell Me Why Part Two: The Cut of His Jibcomments
john posted in politics & culture on August 4th, 2008

The first part of this post back in September lamented that a friend, who is a level-headed sort of fellow, will still vote Republican even though he highly disapproves of the Iraq Mess and most of the other Bush Administration boondoggles, fiascoes, and self-imposed disasters. The disconnect between his policy views and voting seems surreal to me, and yet as I said, he is a wise and kind fellow.

Reading over this I am struck by the notion that I am arguing with myself and my political friends here. I’ll bet your average cynical campaign strategist will see the points I make below as trivially obvious and the need to discuss policy as naive. So yes, I need you to bear with me as I try to figure out why mere tactics win elections, even though they are juvenile, even demagogic. And after the last eight years, that does sound like a naive argument.

Political science courses will teach you that the vast majority of voters in national elections, sadly about half the adult population, vote according to party rather than platform. Only about ten percent consider themselves independent of party, and are willing to vote for either party in a national election. (these percentages may be in flux) But being independent in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Presidential election means being unable to choose between very different parties and policies. It’s as if you can’t decide whether you want to wear a hawaiian shirt or a shirt and tie. This seems bizarre on the face of it: the people who care about policy stick to one party no matter what it does, and the people who prefer to choose a candidate across parties don’t care much about policy. Plus, there is a huge group of the indifferent who stay away altogether. Yet there are still many voters who watch debates avidly and soak up speeches, policy, and commentary.

This seems crazy!
Do registered Democrats think that health policy should be radically overhauled, or do people who think so register as Democrats? And what about the fringe candidates who claim that both parties are essentially the same, isn’t that a view echoed widely among non-voters? What could possibly motivate independents, who are wavering between two very-different alternatives lately? Are they idiots who can’t make up their mind? If so why do they vote at all? And why then does the basic demographic makeup of parties sometimes go through a seismic change?

What we all agree on:
Let’s start with the facts we pretty much all agree on. First, we have the voter groups given above. Let’s stipulate that lately the parties are quite different and highly partisan. Parties do change their basic make-up from time to time, and yet voters usually prefer allegiance over policy.

Here are some theories:

It’s not rational.
Never mind what voters say, the vast majority vote on something other than policy.

Tribalism.
They vote on tribalism: trying to match an atavistic standard of tribal leader against current fashion and available candidates.

It’s personality.
Voters belong to parties and sometimes to personalities ( see tribalism ) rather than policy.

Some are just louder.
Some voters, the intelligentsia, vote on policy. Because their voice is far louder - bloggers, policy wonks, special interests - they seem to be a larger group than they actually muster.

Just tell me why again:
Well my friend is not much involved with personalities, he would see attraction to personality as childish and naive. He’s seen a lot of politicians come and go, and has a jaundiced view of them. But he identifies with the daddy-party, the Republicans. Voting Democrat is too union, or female, or black, or pro-welfare … just too mommy.

Maybe policy wonks have it all wrong:
Just for a minute, let go of your attitude that Republicans stand for this and Democrats stand for that. Step back and try to find a post WWII President who predicted what he would do in office and followed up by doing it. And before we list them, let’s acknowledge that many Presidents aren’t allowed to do much at all due to partisan gridlock in Congress.

Truman:
The Kansas City machine pol becomes the ultimate straight-shooter, you knew just what you were going to get in 1948. Or not. You wouldn’t have known about the Korean War. When he was Vice-President it would have been hard to see him as an Internationalist or Cold Warrior.

Eisenhower:
The non-egghead, the military man. He started federally-enforced desegregation in the South and quite prophetically warned against the military-industrial complex.

Kennedy:
The handsome young guy with the best and brightest. Barely kept American and Russian hawks from starting World War Three, launched Bay of Pigs fiasco and Vietnam adventure.

Johnson:
The consummate underhanded back-room pol, election-stealer, Texas cracker, and Southern power-broker initiates the Civil Rights Act, the Great Society and the full-blown Vietnam war, and then quits in a fit of conscience.

Nixon:
The main street Republican who unpredictably started the EPA, went to Red China, plotted with Henry Kissinger of all people, installed wage and price controls, and then predictably indulged in paranoia, crime, and cover-ups. A Californian, he remade the Republicans into a party of disgruntled white Southerners.

Carter:
An odd small-town teetotaling guy who became an international diplomatic leader, after he fumbled at the presidency.

Reagan:
Unpredictably willing to negotiate with the Russians, oddly disconnected from a job he tried to get for years. Nancy’s influence may be underrated.

Bush Sr:
He was predictable, once you understood his compromise with the supply-side and fundamentalist wings of the party.

Clinton:
After the initial years utterly unpredictable due to the escalating battles with the Gingrich conservatives and with his own nature. A Democrat who balanced the budget and cut welfare ( which he said he would do).

W:
He was billed as the compassionate conservative, he hated nation-building and involvement in foreign wars. The Supreme Court appointments and foot dragging on financial regulation and environmental issues were predictable. A saber-rattling Republican who wallowed in debt. Well, that might have been predictable after Reagan.

So my point is these presidencies were overwhelmed by international events, fiscal crises, personal demons, partisanship, infighting, and court intrigue. They are often represented as unable to deal with two crises at once, and their staffs are over-worked and under-prepared. Frequently the President has only the power of the bully pulpit. The veto works if you don’t want government to provide services and manage the economy ( Republicans) and is clumsy or unusable if you are trying to get things done ( Democrats). It’s not such an outlandish idea to suggest that Presidents’ personality and instincts have more to do with their successes than their carefully crafted policies. True, ideologues don’t change position as much in office as pragmatists, but even the dogmatic Reagan and W changed quite a bit. And we have never had a left-wing ideologue: it’s easier to govern as a rigid right-winger because you generally want government to not do things on the domestic front.

It’s the cut of his jib:
Maybe the real path to understanding voters is to ignore all the platforms and just look at the personalities? Comparing Eisenhower-Stevenson, or Kennedy-Nixon, Nixon-McGovern, Reagan-Carter, Clinton-Dole, and Bush-Gore you can see sharp personality differences that in hindsight seem significant. But what about Johnson-Goldwater, Carter-Ford, Reagan-Mondale, Bush-Dukakis? The policy differs, but the personality isn’t so obviously in contrast.

Personality?
You may be countering here that personality, especially as the average voter sees it, is a superficial and heavily manipulated quality, indeed it may be entirely manufactured. Quite true, but what matters to this investigation is not what policy-wonks and historians think, but what the voters think. Since we can’t find a consistent policy thread behind voting, the Whats the Matter With Kansas problem, I think we have to look at the ineffables. Sure I thought Nixon was a crook, liar, and general scoundrel in 1968, but that clearly wasn’t obvious to the voters as a whole until later.

Policy counts after all:
But just using the Bush-Cheney administration as example, there is a vast difference between what we got, and what might have happened. On policy after policy, you can’t ignore the differences. Three trillion dollars and over a hundred thousand dead later, can you deny that Gore would have saved money and lives compared to Bush? The neo-cons came to office with an imperial agenda, and Cheney had his own agenda for vast Presidential power. The failed handling of 9/11 appeared to be personal incompetence, and for W that probably did signify, but we can now see that policy was behind the War on Terror. But its was a secret policy, unknown to main-stream Republicans and Democrats, perhaps that counts as yet another example of unpredictable outcomes that confuse voters. On environmental policy, the differences between what we got and might have had are obvious. But in 2004 you can argue that the reality of Bush-Cheney was in the open for all to see. A depressing thought, that.

Parties count too:
So I return to that undeniable difference between parties. In spite of what the Nader-nuts and the disaffected non-voters say, there is a difference.

Issue	Vote for Them
Deregulation trumps regulation	Republican Red
Regulation is required for stability	Democratic Blue
Enormous effort against immigration makes sense	Republican Red
Laissez-faire prevention of immigration and some social services for illegals	Democratic Blue
Do nothing about healthcare	Republican Red
Try to do something about nationalized health care	Democratic Blue
Maximize defense spending using debt	Republican Red
Emphasize science, research, economic development over defense	Democratic Blue
Resist all attempts to involve government in environmental regulation, control, and planning	Republican Red
Start regulating the nation out of oil era	Democratic Blue
Emphasize military in foreign policy	Republican Red
Emphasize diplomacy in foreign policy	Democratic Blue

and so on…

Judgment versus instinct:
Voters must be widely willing to give up their own analytic judgments, in favor of their instincts. Business Republicans can’t llike the anti-European, debt-burdened, do-nothing Bush-Cheney tenure, however much the financiers loved the hedge-fund and derivatives free-for-all. It’s clear the monkeys were in charge of the zoo, and the grown-ups weren’t watching.

Another factor may be that the personal outcomes of elections are often different from the civic outcome. People, like monkeys, will sometimes vote for what they see as civic welfare over their own. The twentieth century mass movement from farm to city life has left vast numbers of people stranded in economic and moral backwaters, unable to cope. In What’s the Matter with Kansas Thomas Frank argues that Republican voters ignore their own best interests and lash out against a straw target of liberal Democratic elites. Wall Street abhorred Clinton, but the 1990’s were a great time for Wall Street; they loved Bush, but they are hurting now.

It can be worked just the opposite too. People may say they are concerned about this or that abstract policy ( illegal immigration, reforming healthcare, free trade ) and end up voting their wallet first. Hence the no-new-taxes mantra of Republicans, and farm politics in general, where whole states of rugged individualists vehemently defend their federal hand-out.

Scandal is sometimes good, and I hate the Yankees:
So on certain well-publicized policies there are clear differences between parties, no matter what candidate is running. But on difficult and complex issues, particularly foreign-policy issues that suddenly appear - Muslim terrorism I am thinking here - the personality matters more. The electoral process does not lend itself to reasoned discussion or thoughtful, flexible policies - understatement alert - and neither does the current partisanship in Congress. However, while candidates strive for a homogenized image in the campaign, strategic crises in a candidate’s campaign, even if largely artificial and banal, may show up a candidate’s backbone. This is the only good thing I can see in the ridiculous length of American political campaigns. How the future President will react has a lot to do with the personality traits uncovered by these campaign crises. See some propaganda clips” I can’t remember anything I did wrong.”

Join the club:
Even if you feel that you are immune from the tribal-leader attraction, or emotional appeals ( I don’t believe you ), you can’t get away from the clubbiness inherent in being of one party or the other. Inside your party you can hang with people you like and loathe the status symbols and style of the opposite party. It’s easier to dump on the platform of the other party when you just plain hate they way they carry themselves.

It’s not so different from Cubs fans versus Yankees fans. Democrats are just not going to start liking Remington bronzes, big-haired ladies, and Hummers, and we’ll say it’s all because of that damn Milton Friedman. Republicans are not going to suddenly begin liking Red Grooms, Priuses, and Lightnin’ Hopkins, and its all because of those damn welfare cheats, foreign aid, and illegal aliens. So I think allegiance to the political club is even more important than the candidate’s personality. Party allegiance allows you to go with your gut and dress up the choice with the rationalization of policy.

Sometimes policy will trump clubbiness and personality, especially on hot-button issues. Crossover moments have happened, when there were re-arrangements of the party demographics. I am thinking Nixon’s Southern Strategy, and the subsequent alignment of blacks with the Democrats, and crackers with the Republicans. But even there you can argue that the style of the club changed- imagine if Steinbrenner bought the Cubs. Suddenly the Clarence Snopes of the south migrated over to the party with hate-Negroes code words, and the Democrats started talking affirmative action.

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Just Tell Me Why:
It’s just because those Republicans seem more like your kinda guy than those Democrats. Your talk about policy is like the eternal complaints about Steinbrenner and his over-paid prima donnas of the diamond, yet you still remain a Yankees fan because they are fundamentally winners. No wonder it gets my blood pressure up - those damn Cubs will never win the Series, and those damn Yankees will again.

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Why Microsoft Can’t Make it Work
john posted in memes, technologies on July 1st, 2008

Not Just Another Bash-Microsoft Session

Nice things will be said about Microsoft.

(afterthought: today it was announced that Microsoft has started funding Apache, see end of this article for more)

I ran across this MS research project page recently when I googled “intelligent adaptive interface.” I was looking to see if anyone was working on making computer and small device interfaces that adapt to the user’s behavior. What I had in mind was using one of the newly-ubiquitous tiny Linux devices as a remote control. On my conventional low-budget stereo and tv devices, the remotes have a gazillion buttons, with no logical placement and no hierarchy. The labels are invisible in the dark and require reading glasses in the light, and inscrutable when actually read. You all know the drill.

Well this very scientific and academic page shows a whole series of Microsoft Research projects on the general notion of adaptive interfaces. At a glance you can tell this is Serious Stuff done by Serious but Nice People ( their pictures are there). They are well-organized, use big-time ideas like Bayesian filters and Matrices, 3D interfaces, “a state-of-the-art psychological studies laboratory,” and so forth. They get to re-examine human-machine physical interfaces, and all sorts of interesting problems.

So what have they come up with?
The infamous talking paper clip.
Yep I am not kidding. OK there is a long list of other things of more substance from implementing encryption to new 3D rendering filters.

Now the MS people I have met have been really smart, and I don’t doubt for a minute that working with these folks would be a real intellectual thrill. But I assure you, bet money on it, they will never solve the remote control button problem, or even improve the visual mess that is Windows. How come I know this at a glance, without any special knowledge? You look at that page, what do you think? And chime in if you disagree.

So why can’t they make it work?
They have meetings.
They have too many people and too much money.
Whatever they do will be diluted and absorbed by the layer after layer of other groups just like them at Microsoft.
They start by going back and questioning premises about human psychology.
They have no test track and feedback loop.
They aren’t hungry.

Feedback
For me, the most interesting of these obstacles (because it could, in theory, be overcome at a big company), is the lack of feedback and test track. The rest are the result of working in a company with 30,000 other smart people, where overhead approaches 100% of total effort. What’s feedback in this case? Feedback is not focus groups. Useful feedback comes from actually writing some software and letting it loose on the public to see if anyone likes it, and actually paying attention to what they say and do. The test track is the venue where you can get good feedback with high frequency.

Let’s look at an analogy, motor racing. In racing you have an absolute test: the order of finish. You have a set of rules, intentionally designed to narrow the problem with constraints to the point where it becomes partially soluble, remains quite difficult, and always has room for improvement. You have competitors and a prize which provide motivation. Good engineering practice is reinforced in racing because at every level there are painful time and resource constraints.

Let me use a type of racing I am familiar with to explain why good practice is reinforced:
In motorcycle road racing a team typically races one or two times a month, but they only get to the track on Tuesday sometimes even Thursday before a Sunday race. Because of cost constraints of many kinds, they only get a few hours of practice, and then qualifying time on the track. Every track is different and requires a new chassis setup, and last year’s settings won’t work, because too many other factors have changed. There are multiple variables to set, and they have unpredictable interactions. Teams have no ability to use the track at other times for testing. There is an unshakable deadline, and somebody wins.

So does this incredibly difficult process produce better engineered bikes?
Lap times get faster every year. C’est tout.

Back to Microsoft, just how are they ever to get this sort of feedback, testing, and motivation? The giant company could spin off into small teams and create a competition. But then what is the test? Microsoft can’t afford to release a bunch of half-baked ideas to the public ( cynics disagree, but I promised not to mock ), so the test is inevitably arbitrary and maybe political. This engenders a kind of corporate navel-staring which can’t produce good work. So no, I don’t think they can innovate, because too much is at stake.

What about the famous iPod, iPhone model of innovation at Apple? The market has clearly voted for that in a big way. Apple is a huge company that nevertheless finds it possible to innovate. The Apple Macintosh approach to the personal computer was to control everything, the hardware, the operating system, the user interface, in the name of consistency, reliability and integration. All of which are other ways to say “control.” Yes Apple is more of a control-freak than Microsoft.

A recent Wired magazine article tried to take on the culture at Apple, inevitably making the question into the culture of Steve Jobs:

Jobs’ fabled attitude toward parking reflects his approach to business: For him, the regular rules do not apply. …
… Apple is … more like an old-fashioned industrial titan than a different-thinking business of the future. Apple operates with a level of secrecy that makes Thomas Pynchon look like Paris Hilton. It locks consumers into a proprietary ecosystem. And as for treating employees like gods? Yeah, Apple doesn’t do that either.

But by deliberately flouting the Google mantra, Apple has thrived. When Jobs retook the helm in 1997, the company was struggling to survive. Today it has a market cap of $105 billion, placing it ahead of Dell and behind Intel…..

It’s hard to see how any of this would have happened had Jobs hewed to the standard touchy-feely philosophies of Silicon Valley. Apple creates must-have products the old-fashioned way: by locking the doors and sweating and bleeding until something emerges perfectly formed. It’s hard to see the Mac OS and the iPhone coming out of the same design-by-committee process that produced Microsoft Vista or Dell’s Pocket DJ music player.

( I have cut out a rather silly comparison to Google)

This probably isn’t the most profound commentary on Apple, but it does try to get at the culture issue that is clearly different, if a bit distasteful. Jobs is famously a screamer, possessed of a legendary “reality distortion field,” in short, a real prima donna. I worked a long time ago for an outfit with a head man like that, The Santa Fe Opera under John Crosby. He ran the opera like a fiefdom, it was housed on his ranch North of Santa Fe, and he usually decided by fiat that he would conduct one of the operas each season. He used his own stable of buddies to conduct, design, and direct. He was known to summarily dismiss even lowly employees for simple offenses like a noisy muffler. Crosby was at best a mediocre conductor, and his taste could veer into the campy and maudlin, but it’s impossible to conceive of the SFO without him. He created a world-class summer residency for opera out of the juniper, sagebrush, and rattlesnakes of New Mexico. Santa Fe was interesting. It was something to sit outside ready for the incredible New Mexico stars, watching a thunderstorm approach down the Rio Grande valley, and have the orchestra break into the Der Fliegender Hollander, or Lulu, the most depressing show I have ever seen, or Falstaff. At its best, it was thrilling, and people cared.

The various Apple iThings were brand-new products, and Jobs bet a good part of the company on them. Poker players call this kind of gamble, “all-in” and it requires an appetite for risk, and an environment where aggression is rewarded. Other companies don’t seem to be able to follow, even when there is such a clear example to copy. Let’s not just dump on Microsoft, why can’t the Japanese or Koreans or Finns make an mp3 player or cell-phone as good as an iPod or iPhone?

Hell, why can’t anybody even make a good remote control or car radio?

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Microsoft goes Open Source?

an afterthought…

Well the cnet article points out previous areas of cooperation between Microsoft and the Open Source world, and favorable differences in the Apache license and the GPL used by many other open applications. So its not quite a shocker. But never mind these inside-the-silicon-axis matters, does this mean Microsoft might have to open up its platform to be able to innovate at all?

Windows is in a pinch. World-wide its tremendous market success has paradoxically left it with few new markets to expand into. Sure the Chinese market may eventually be as big as Europe and America combined, but its not at all clear that they will pay for the software they use. If somehow forced to start observing international IP standards on piracy, they might just use no-cost Linux instead. The latest Windows, Vista, has been a flop technically and in sales. In addition, the hot new market is phones and tiny devices, where Apple owns the flashy-bits and Linux, with help from Google and others, may be the gorilla in the room.

An admittedly far-fetched scenario:
If Microsoft moved very quickly and transformed Windows into a windowing application that could run natively on Linux, and provided software infrastructure ( libraries) for the applications developers to port to the Linux kernel-Windows hybrid, they might be able to drop thousands of developers from Windows, and replace them with some funding for the various Linux groups they’d need. Windows users would get the same look&feel, and Microsoft could probably charge just as much for a product with much smaller development costs. They won’t do it because its risky.

Not doing it might be just as risky, since the Open Source world is catching up quickly in all areas. Another far-fetched idea of three years ago, that one day Linux and friends might be a real competitor for Windows, doesn’t seem as outrageous today. Another and more likely option for Microsoft is to stay the course and milk the Windows franchise for as long as it can, and meanwhile focus on games, small devices, and phones. This might be more profitable in the near term, depending on how much labor costs could be saved or re-used on future-oriented development. It would be much easier for management to do, and therefore its the likely choice for them.

Strapless Biking Part 1
john posted in rides on June 9th, 2008

All you biker boys and girls who haul your bikes on trailers or pickups have a set of ratchet or cam-lock nylon webbing straps to hold them down. They work pretty well inside a closed trailer or in the back of a pickup, but on an open trailer like mine they are an irritating pain-in-the-tail. They take too long to install, loosen, flap in the breeze, jam, fray, and rub your paint. They aren’t cheap and the ratchets are designed by some drop-out from the Technical Institute of Inner Berzerkistan. The most troublesome aspect of all, is finding the right length: they just won’t work at all in short stretches, so we couldn’t tie down at the proper angle to the edge of the trailer. With a five-foot wide trailer each bike’s outside hand grip is approximately at the trailer edge, so there is no place to tie to at the proper 45 degree angle. The inner ties interfere with the other bike.

So when we saw a new (to us) kind of locking chock on a fellow’s rig, my riding partner Matt demanded that we get some. I had a set of truly fugly but battleship-rated set of chocks made from quarter-inch steel channel on the trailer. Replacing them with new Bike Shoes from Pit Posse made it lots easier to load the bikes single-handed, and gave a positive clamp on the front wheel. They cost us about $70 each plus shipping.

Part 1: The Chocks - ATK Bike Shoes (only for dirt bikes)

..The inspiration.

These chocks are intended to bolt down to your trailer bed, but as an alternative to permanent mounting, our friend had them bolted to a sheet of plywood which he just threw in the pickup when needed.

....Bolted to the trailer bed.

You can see from the pictures that they are made from tube steel and are sturdy, with good welds and paint. It’s trivial to bolt them down, just drill and bolt. Don’t forget the Locktite and big washers!

Magic thread locker goo.

The mechanism is a bit hard to understand. Look at the picture above with the blue chocks. One is in the open and one in the closed position. One hoop reaches forward under your fender to grab some tire tread, the middle hoop goes along for the ride, and the biggest hoop is pulled down to apply pressure against the tire. This holds the bike upright and locked into the chock.

The Loading Sequence:

	Rolling up onto the trailer.
	Set in open chock.
	Look Ma, even with the chock open, the bike stays up!
	Push the first hoop as far back as it will go, and tuck into the tread.
	Pull the big hoop forward until the tire is squeezed.
	That’s it!

Once we had the chocks bolted down and tested, we were still in the same old situation with the rear of the bikes. Always the rear bounces around and slides sideways, even with a pair of tie-downs. I thought at first that I’d add a piece of of steel channel to the back for each rear wheel, and just tie the wheel down to the bed. But that would have made for awkward permanent trip-me-ups right in the middle of the trailer, and it just didn’t seem like the best solution. Worse, I didn’t have any scrap of the right size, like I did for the front. See Part 2 for the solution.

Strapless Biking Part2
john posted in rides on June 9th, 2008

In Part 1 I showed some nice new motorcycle wheel chocks called Bike Shoes, installed on my trailer. They eliminated the problems with using tie-downs on the front of the bike. No more compressed suspension, loose ties, and jammed ratchets. And they make loading and un-loading he bikes much quicker - something that happens four times on every ride.

But I still wasn’t satisfied with the system for the rear of the bike. If we just installed some channel or blocks to hold the wheels, the bike would still jump around when the trailer hits bumps, and the attachment points on the bike are too low and too close to the trailer rings to use a proper angle with the ties. Here’s what I did instead:

Part 2: Turnbuckle Tie-Downs

One of the problems with the nylon webbing ties is that they only work in tension, not in compression. As soon as you pull on them sideways they stretch or the ratchet gives a little, and there goes your tension. I thought of making some long poles with clips on the end, but without a way to adjust them, they would have too much play. And they would flop around and be in the way when not in use. But then someone pointed out that the foot pegs were ideal tie down points. They are strong and in about the right place for the trailer. Nobody cares if they get scratched, and they have holes for connections. They are much too close to the ground for webbing ties, but a turnbuckle fits the distance, roughly 12 inches, easily.

Turnbuckles come with closed eyes or hooks, however, both of which present problems. The hooks connect easily, but not positively, so you only get tension, not compression. The eyes require some sort of clip or bolt. But the turnbuckle itself is stiff and readily adjustable. (In the picture below you can see a modified turnbuckle with larger eye.)

..parts needed.

Attaching to the bed:
After some thought I decided to go on using the same 3/8″ eyebolts, that I had already used on the trailer for tie-down points. I needed to connect two eyes together. They eyebolts have an eye with approximately 7/8″ inside diameter, which is way to large for a connector bolt, so I scrounged through the little baggies of gear at the store until I found a bushing that fit tightly inside the eye. I needed a little Dremel work to grind the eye larger on some, but I left the bushing alone as it had flat sides. I held the bikes up in the chocks and measured each one ( good thing - they are different) to get a trailer attachment point with a good angle to the footpeg.

Rear view showing turnbuckle angle:

..Yes, that’s a trials tire I am testing.

So now we knew where to attach to the trailer and how long the turnbuckle unit should be to be able to reach and still tighten up. The eye bolt on the trailer had to attach to the eye bolt on the turnbuckle. So I took a bolt that matches the inside diameter of the bushing, two large fender washers, and the bushing, and make a sandwich with the bushing between and inside the two eyes. This makes a fitting almost as tight as a machined fitting, yet it can still rotate in two axes. Don’t forget to add a little grease and use Locktite on the nut. This combo gives you adjustment and a simple attachment to the floor, yet retains its stiffness in both tension and compression.

..Eyebolt with bushing.

..Finished joint.

Adjusting to each bike:
Now that we have a way to attach the turnbuckle to the trailer, we can look at the length. Our two bikes are a bit different and one was too high for the one size of turnbuckle available. So I used a piece of threaded rod and a coupling nut to make an extra-long eyebolt. Of course this meant I had to use the normal right-handed end of the turnbuckle, with the left handed end using the turnbuckle’s own eye. On the other bike I was able to just substitute a longer screw eye for the one that came with the turnbuckle.

In both cases I used an eyebolt with a larger eye diameter to match the eyebolts on the trailer. You can see this in the picture of hardware above.

..Made-up long screw eye.

..Longer eyebolt:

Connecting to the footpeg:
Now I had to connect the screw eye to the footpeg with some easy device that requires no tools, because this connection will be made and broken every time you use the bike. I had a couple of crude rigger’s carabiners with threaded nuts that worked fine for one side, but I only had two, so I sat and stared at it for a while. I decided to accomplish two tasks with one device: by using a padlock as a connector I would be locking the bike to the trailer, and solve the connector problem. It turned out that a standard padlock is just the right shackle size to make a good connection, so I bought a pair of keyed-alike ones. It might make sense to just use four padlocks if you try this rig. The padlocks are really easy to use, and make a tighter connection than the carabiners.

..Carabiner.

..Padlock.

Using the system:
You could use this system without the Bike Shoe chocks, and I used to do it by myself with the ratchet tie-downs using the bike’s kickstand. However there isn’t much slack in a turnbuckle- only about 40% of total length- and it might be difficult to get the first one on without losing the bike. So you might need a helper. One turnbuckle will hold the bike ( that tension plus compression), so the second one is not a problem.

We had already installed our slick new Bike Shoes (see Part 1), so loading the bikes is now easy and quick.

1) Roll the bike up and lock it into the chock.
2) Unscrew one turnbuckle and connect it to the footpeg, leaving some slack.
3) Repeat for the other turnbuckle. At this point the bike is extremely stable, but there is some play at the footpeg.
4) Tighten both turnbuckles. (Don’t over-tighten, for instance by using a lever, because a turnbuckle can exert tons of force. You might pull the eye right out of the bed or bend your peg.)
5) You are done. Go riding.

Tightening the turnbuckle:	Ready to go.

Before, even with four tie-downs on each bike, after a run up a rough road we always had to get out and re-adjust because the bikes were flopping around. The more they moved, the looser they got. The trailer has quite a rough ride ( the next trailer I build is going to have shocks). After, with the turnbuckles, the whole trailer moves as a unit, bikes and all. The bikes’ suspension is only slightly compressed beyond the resting position, and we automatically have the security of padlocks for those long nighttime stops at the Chinese buffet.

What else you can do:
For road racers who transport bikes a lot, this would make a great system. You will have to find a way to attach to the footpeg though. You could drill a hole right through the peg, but you could also make a backingplate with two holes, one for the peg-shaft and one for the turnbuckle. Then take the peg off and re-install it with the plate between it and the frame. You might want to bend the plate to get the attachment point away from the bodywork. Some bikes will have a hollow axle where you could put a skewer through the rear. Using two eyes, threaded rod, and coupling nuts you could make a skewer that would work. You could substitute a clevis pin or even a bolt for the carabiner attachment to the footpeg, but the padlock works so well, I’d advise to keep that.

The author	Brer Matt, the chocks were his idea.
	.. Yes Matt’s wearing a genuine Sharkbait t-shirt.

Smart Fortwo Car Reviewcomment
john posted in rides on March 28th, 2008

Update: I test drove a Smart coupe today on my daily driving loop. It is plenty fast on the freeway and merging, and did well in strong, gusty winds. The auto mode transmission still lurches, but not as badly. The paddle-shifters manual-mode work fine, even with quick downshifts. I had forgotten how easy it is to get in and get out of, the doors are huge. The interior was nicely done for a small car. So my objections about the transmission are put to rest. The gas mileage is reported by new owners as 40 mpg on the freeway, which is just what the EPA sticker says. This is quite disappointing, considering a Honda Insight ( no longer sold) can get up to 70 with practice. A Toyota Yaris or Honda Fit is just as good on mileage, or nearly so, and a lot bigger car. In Europe they get a very-high-mileage diesel version.

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We went down to LA to the uber-hip Smart House to test drive a Smart Fortwo.

not-your-usual-showroom Venice CA

Our car spec is:
1) minimal cost - Prius is too much at $26k+
2) minimal energy use - Smart is in the same range as Prius.
3) two seats and room for light luggage or groceries
4) more interesting than boring old Prius
5) AC, CD-Radio, electric locks and windows
6) freeway capable
7) airbags and roll-over protrection
fits my six foot well-over 200 lbs frame
10) alloy wheels - I don’t ever want to see another hubcap.

See a gallery of pictures here.

The Smart meets all these, plus has a cool Tiptronic-style auto-manual paddle shift transmission, and is so tiny you can park it end-in instead of parallel. Cost, for the middle level of options, is somewhere between $13.5K and $17k .

Passion model with silver frame.

Options:

Pure is the base model - I bet they sell none. no AC or radio or sunroof! I am ignoring it from here on.
Passion is the middle model - I bet 80% are these. Has fixed glass ( polycarbonate) roof, and all the options we need.
Cabriolet is the convertible version of the Passion.

All are three-cylinder, gasoline powered rear drive. ABS brakes are standard on the Passion.

The sales people weren’t entirely clear on some small items like MP3 support, glove box, and the funny ash-tray or CD holder choice. The cars also have built-in attachment points for bike racks. The Passion and Cab have only one engine option so far, though in Europe they have several engines, and battery-electrics and super-clean diesels are said to be in the future. Update: Passion ( Coupe) has plug-in MP3 capable CD-player.

Why?

Because its cheap, hip, gets something like 32-42 mpg in the real world, and parks where no other car dares to go. Keep the SUV for towing your boat, and drive this little puppy to work every day. Pick up girls/boys/whatever.

Driving Impression:

We drove a Euro-spec one with the Tiptronic-style auto-manual tranny, but no paddle shifters. ( see update) The transmission was not working correctly, it had a huge lag in shifting. Either it’s automatic-adjust-to-your-driving-style was totally confused by the multitude of testers, or it’s just plain broken. I can’t believe it comes that way based on the large number sold in Europe. This is the smallest car on the road, but it is quite comfy for two men, and easier to get in and out than my Honda Civic. Visibility was excellent, and oddly it feels far bigger than it is. It’s no racer, but it keeps up with traffic more or less like a base-model automatic Corolla. It felt solid and quiet, given that it is a tiny econobox.

Fit and Finish:

Because it is so light, a bit more than half the weight of a Prius, you have to expect the body work and interior to be a bit motorcycle-like. The front hood for example, is just a plastic cover, without hinges, that snaps in place. The gas door is similarly just a cheap piece of plastic. The seats and interior panels looked fine, and the controls and knobs were similar to inexpensive cars from other makers. The trunk releases were flimsy, as was the special storage panel in the trunk door. I think you expect some breakage in these parts, and they should be handled gently. Angry teenage drivers will tear the plastic stuff right off the car. But steering, door handles and seats felt solid. From the start the Smart has used snap-in replaceable body panels, so you can decide to have a different color just by buying the set of panels. This will make minor repairs cheaper, as no paint matching is required. The frame is actually a kind of roll cage, visible from the outside and inside ( see the cutaway views on the gallery) . It comes in two colors, metallic silver and standard black. You get to mix and match with the body colors: white, grey, black, blue, red, and yellow. Just exactly why anyone would buy such a cute car in a boring color is a mystery, they should have electric green, orange, plus some nice pastels.

Aftermarket:

The car screams for customization, from the replaceable body panels, to the wimpy little motor. It has a very cute but masculine personality -unlike VW bugs, men will buy them - much like the eager quality of the original Mini Cooper. I foresee photo-realistic murals on body panels, LED lights, sound systems, fancy seats, lots of engine upgrades, wider wheels and the usual suspension bits. I would think an autocross or even road racer would be possible.

What to ask about:

There is a power steering option, which I had no need for.
Which transmission are you getting, with the paddle shifters and manual option?
Does the CD-Radio have an MP3 option, or is that only on the Cab model?
Is there a real glove box, or just a space?
Some colors are extra, as are leather seats and special wheels.
Check out the racks for bicycles.

How do I buy one?

They are going to sell through Mercedes dealers ( Daimler Benz has been an owner since the Swatch company bowed out). The Penske organization holds the distributorship, which usually means everything is organized down to the paperclips, but there is a certain vagueness about dates and locations. They say, January or February 2008.

Dear Smart:

Let’s get more daring with the colors!
Get the super-clean turbo diesel in.
Move as fast as you can on the lithium-electric version.
Clean up the cheap plastic.
ForTwo is the dumbest name since the Charade.

Added: a video of a head-on crash test

Notice that the safety cell frame remained intact, one door even works after the crash.