Butt Sensitive - Computerisation Gone Mad?

Instead of scribbling a post for today, I spent yesterday afternoon being passed from one "agent" to another at the Chevrolet "Customer Assistance" department. (Quotation marks used advisedly!)

We have a Chevrolet Impala of last year's vintage, with which we've been very happy, except for one recent detraction. When we bought the car, up in Nebraska last year, I found the passenger seat very comfortable - much more so than our 2015 Impala which we swapped-in as part of the deal. Recently, though, I've had a bit of lower back trouble from the passenger seat and have needed a seat cushion to assist. However, I noticed that when using a seat cushion the passenger seat airbag sign began showing as "off" - i.e. deactivated.

The car's manual, I later discovered, tells that one cannot use any kind of cover or cushion on the front passenger seat because it deactivates the air bag. We made enquiries of our local dealership when having the car serviced a few weeks ago. Husband was told that there's nothing to be done about it - that "they're all like this now". So, unless my car seat feels my real, flesh and blood, backside upon it, it ain't going to save me with an airbag, should we meet with disaster!

Computerisation gone mad, I guess!

I do not believe that I'm the only one with this problem. There has to be a remedy.

So, I decided that this isn't right, found a Customer Service phone number for Chevrolet, for some expert assistance. A couple or so hours later I was no wiser, but considerably more frustrated. Apparently they have opened "a business case" to be passed on to some person higher on the scale of knowledge about these things. None of the 4 or 5 folks I was passed around amongst had any idea that this problem is actually "a thing". It surely is!

The person supposedly "higher on the knowledge scale" called me back sometime after 6 PM (central time), and assured me she will try to find a solution, but cannot promise anything. She said that she had never come across this particular complaint before. I suggested that perhaps nobody else with an iffy back has noticed what happens when using a seat cushion. I am surely not the only person with an iffy back riding in the front passenger seat of a 2017 Impala, in these United states.

TSK! We await further information...or frustration.

Saturday & Sundry

I'm even further out of the loop than I'd imagined - I'm no longer even part of "the older generation" - said to be inhabitants of Facebook (I'm not!) I must be way out there, well past where the buses don't run! From: Why the Modern World Is Bad for Your Brain - How our addiction to technology is making us less efficient, by Daniel J. Levitin (The Guardian)

"Now of course email is approaching obsolescence as a communicative medium. Most people under the age of 30 think of email as an outdated mode of communication used only by “old people”. In its place they text, and some still post to Facebook. They attach documents, photos, videos, and links to their text messages and Facebook posts the way people over 30 do with email. Many people under 20 now see Facebook as a medium for the older generation."

My predicament reminds me of something Douglas Adams once wrote:

1) Everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;
2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;
3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.”

26 Pictures Will Make You Re-Evaluate Your Entire Existence

The universe, man… THE UNIVERSE.


Hmmm - and that reminds me of something else Douglas Adams once wrote:

If life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.

Some "portmanteau" words we might have assumed came fully-fledged from some technical textbook or other are really just a combination of two other words:

In 1969, pixel, a blend of pictures — or rather, the abbreviation pix—and element, only referred to televised images.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, meld likely came from a combination of melt and weld in the 1930s. Vulcan mind-melding came along some 30 years later.

The concept of the bit, or binary digit, has been around since the late 1940s.

In 1975, the term endorphin was created from the French word endogène and morphine to describe those opiate-like peptides that kick in just when you're about to give up jogging altogether.

More at Mental floss HERE


And...what did Douglas Adams have to say on wordy or alphabetical matters?

The only moral it is possible to draw from this story is that one should never throw the letter Q into a privet bush, but unfortunately there are times when it is unavoidable. -"The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,"

Did you know that Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades star cluster M45, or "The Seven Sisters" (one of which tradition says is invisible - hence only six stars in the car company's Subaru logo), which in turn inspires the logo and alludes to the companies that merged to create Fuji Heavy Industries?

More interesting origins of car company and car model names in this video:




Mr Adams must have had a few words to say about cars?

On Earth - when there had been an Earth, before it was demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass - the problem had been cars. The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had safely been hidden out of harm's way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another - particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e. covered with tar, full of smoke and short of fish.
"The Restaurant at the End of the Universe".

Best one of all!

Concluding words of wisdom from Douglas Adams:

The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied.

The Automobile

As we enter the second decade of the 21st century the lifespan of the automobile, in its current gas-guzzling form which, it has to be said has served us well, must be nearing its end. Fossil fuels have brought us this far. It now becomes a challenge for today's younger generation to find replacement fuels or some new, revolutionary technology to take the place of oil, coal and natural gas. As we drive towards such future change, I'll take a look into the rear-view mirror.

"3 April 1885 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for his engine design."

There was a definite atmosphere of innovation around in the late 1800s, especially evident in German engineering. Daimler was not the only engineer/inventor working on designs which would later evolve into the vehicles which now clog our highways. Several engineers were working on broadly similar projects - unknown to one another: Otto, Maybach, Benz for example.

Two of these, Daimler and Maybach, did join forces. A look at their nicely compatible natal charts supports that part of astrological doctrine which states that Aquarius and Uranus strongly connect to innovation and invention. Gottlieb Daimler was born on 17 March 1834 in Schorndorf, Germany. Wilhelm Maybach was born on 9 February 1846 in Heilbronn, Germany. Background information taken from here:

Reutlingen in the summer of 1865: the 31-year-old engineer Gottlieb Daimler is the workshop manager within the engineering works of the "Bruderhaus", a social institute with adjoining production facilities built and run by orphans and the homeless for orphans and the homeless. Out of the young adults who work there, his attention is caught by a 19-year-old with a sparkling talent for drawing, who produces an endless stream of design drafts in the factory's own design offices: designs for paper manufacturing machines, for scales, as well as for all manner of farming implements. His name is Wilhelm Maybach.

The two soon form a close bond: the younger Maybach, who was tragically orphaned when aged only ten, sees an inspirational father figure in Daimler, a much travelled man who is well versed in the ways of the world. The older man, on the other hand, immediately recognises Maybach's potential as a designer. This marks the beginning of a partnership that will continue for many years.......................

Following Gottlieb Daimler's purchase in 1882 of a large property in Cannstatt, still an autonomous municipality close to Stuttgart at that time, he and Wilhelm Maybach set up their workshop in the garden shed that made up part of the property. Both worked tirelessly day and night to redevelop the fast-running four-stroke engine, and devise numerous inventions, such as the hot-tube ignition system.

The charts are set for 12 noon as times of birth are not known. Moon's exact position and rising signs will not be accurate as shown here. Stand-out factors here are the planets in Aquarius and the position of Uranus. Of the two men I'd say that Mayback was the "born inventor" - he had Sun conjunct Saturn and Neptune as well as Mercury all in Aquarius. Uranus in Aries in helpful sextile to Mercury providing a mental orientation in tune with all that was new.

Mars conjunct Jupiter in Taurus were in square aspect to Mercury though - keeping Maybach's feet firmly tethered to Mother Earth. The direction of his inventive genius and subsequent business successes reflect this.

Daimler had Neptune, and Mars conjunct Uranus, all in Aquarius (Uranus being Aquarius's ruler was here present in its purest form).

Mars conjunct Uranus in Daimler's chart conjoins the Aquarius stellium of Sun/Saturn/Neptune in Maybach's! Here is the reason they could collaborate so well for so long. Another point of similarity: they were born 12 years apart, the approximate time it takes for Jupiter to complete its cycle - so both men had natal Jupiter in early Taurus, Daimler at 6 degrees, Maybach at 4 degrees.

Also, Daimler's 00 degree Aquarius Neptune conjoined Maybach's 2 degree Aquarius Mercury blending their creative mentalities.

A couple of sidelights noted along the way: one about the origin of the name Mercedes, as in Mercedes-Benz (see here).

When Daimler died, he left control of his company to his chief engineer Wilhelm Mayback...... By November 22 of that year, Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschat had produced a special car for Emil Jellinek. Jellinek named the car after his ten-year-old daughter Mercedes. Lighter and smaller, the new Mercedes had 35 hp and a top speed of 55 mph!

And the now world-famous "star" logo:

When the patented name "Mercedes" was registered in September 1902 Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft had a successful brand name but still lacked a characteristic trademark. Then Paul and Adolf Daimler - the company founder’s two sons, and now in charge of the business - remembered that their father had once used a star as a symbol.

Gottlieb Daimler had been technical director of the Deutz gas engine factory from 1872 until 1881. At the beginning of his employment there, he had marked a star above his own house on a picture postcard of Cologne and Deutz, and had written to his wife that this star would one day shine over his own factory to symbolize prosperity. The DMG board immediately accepted the proposal and in June 1909, both three-pointed and four-pointed stars were registered as trademarks. (Here.)

They say one should always end with a song.... cue Janis....

Arty Farty Friday ~ BMW Car Art & Jeff Koons

Some photographs of BMW Art Cars sparked my interest. It appears that since 1975 when the “BMW Art Car Project" was launched by racing driver Hervé Poulain, famous artists from all parts of the world have been invited to use the BMW car as their personal canvas. To date 17 such cars have been created, the latest, for 2010, by Jeff Koons - he of the blow-up dogs sculptures and wildly expensive "Hanging Heart" (see below).

I've chosen 4 previous Art Cars from the current 17, the chosen ones painted by artists about whom I've blogged in past posts. A link to relevant pages is included, and a note of the artist's Sun and other signs. I notice a trine Sun to Uranus in each. They're all considered "modernists" and Uranus is nothing if not modern.

Photos of all 17 BMW Art Cars can be viewed HERE.

Starting with the most recently painted car:

The latest BMW car artist, for 2010 and #17 is Jeff Koons
Sun 00 Aquarius opposite Uranus in late Cancer. Well....he would be a quirky Sun Aquarius person wouldn't he? I mean....look what he's famous for!
















JEFF KOONS' BMW Art Car # 17



Jeff Koons' art creations may look like a lot of kitchiness, but....

NEW YORK, 15 NOVEMBER 2007—A new record for a living artist at auction was set when Jeff Koons’ stainless steel Hanging Heart brought $23.6 million yesterday at Sotheby's evening sale of Contemporary Art in New York. Sold to Gagosian Gallery to applause, Hanging Heart, 1994-2006 is considered one of the most important works by Koons ever offered at auction.

The bright magenta heart and gold undulating bow, which took ten years from conception to completion, is one of five uniquely colored versions of this work from Koons’ Celebration series. The perfect surface is coated in more than ten layers of paint. Executed in high chromium stainless steel, Hanging Heart weighs over 3,500 pounds (1,600 kg), is almost nine feet (2.7 meter) tall and took over 6,000 man hours to produce. (Here.)

More detail on this artist and photos of his work at The Skinny:

Jeff Koons is, depending on who you ask, the visual maestro of the contemporary period, or a self-aggrandizing provocateur whose work is ultimately populist and meaningless. He himself has admitted that Pop-Art sensibilities and a strong attachment to the world of marketing and advertising have influenced him tremendously: “I believe in advertisement and media completely. My art and my personal life are based in it. I think that the art world would probably be a tremendous reservoir for everybody involved in advertising. Whatever your beliefs about how future generations will perceive Koons’s work, the sense that he has captured and articulated something vital and significant is undeniable.

Ahem!....."ultimately populist and meaningless"?? Now that remark raises my hackles!
What is meaningless about something that is "populist"? Populism, as opposed to elitism is what the world needs more of. So there!

And back to #1.....

ALEXANDER CALDER painted the very first Art Car. Sun Cancer close trine Uranus Scorpio. Moon Virgo.




ROY LICHENSTEIN
Sun Scorpio trine Uranus Pisces. Moon Taurus or Gemini


ANDY WARHOL Sun Leo trine Uranus/Moon in Aries.


DAVID HOCKNEY
Sun Cancer sextile Uranus Taurus. Moon Cancer or Leo