Author: Serkadis

Filed under: Aftermarket, Coupe, Videos, Chevrolet

Many of us Autobloggers went to colleges that cultivated rabid alumni, but having seen this 2010 Chevrolet Camaro, our graduates were amateurs. In fact, we didn’t realize you could love college, or its title-winning basketball team, so much. But a CarDomain forum member called “QuMongous” loves him some University of North Carolina Tarheels, and put his car in the game to prove it. Argyle pinstripes, his school’s logo on the door, a hand-painted mascot on the rear quarters, and massive blue Dubs with UNC center caps have made this muscle car a tailgating hero. And wait until you see the back window.

Day-um. That’s all we have to say. Follow the jump to see a walkaround of the car. And to you Tarheels players, you owe this guy another championship.

[Source: Tampa Sports Car Examiner]

Continue reading VIDEO: 2010 Camaro UNC Tarheels Edition is for diehards only

VIDEO: 2010 Camaro UNC Tarheels Edition is for diehards only originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FedEx blew away analyst expectations for the second quarter, as it announced guidance of $1.10 per share as opposed to the Street forecast of 65 to 95 cents.

The stock is up over 2% after hours. Below, the release:

—-

Better-Than-Expected Growth in FedEx International Priority and FedEx Ground Volumes Benefit Results

December 7–FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) today announced that it expects to report earnings of $1.10 per diluted share for the second quarter ended November 30, down 30% from $1.58 per diluted share a year ago. The company’s previous guidance for the quarter was $0.65 to $0.95 per diluted share.

“FedEx will exceed previous earnings guidance in the second quarter primarily due to better-than-expected growth in FedEx International Priority and FedEx Ground volumes, coupled with the benefits of our continuing cost control programs,” said Alan B. Graf Jr., FedEx Corp. executive vice president and chief financial officer. “Year-over-year growth in our U.S. overnight express and FedEx International Priority services increased each month during the quarter, aided by inventory restocking and our successful sales efforts. Demand for our international services has improved significantly since the first quarter, particularly in Asia and Latin America.”

FedEx will release the details of its second quarter earnings and update its earnings outlook on December 17, 2009.

Corporate Overview

FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) provides customers and businesses worldwide with a broad portfolio of transportation, e-commerce and business services. With annual revenues of $34 billion, the company offers integrated business applications through operating companies competing collectively and managed collaboratively, under the respected FedEx brand. Consistently ranked among the world’s most admired and trusted employers, FedEx inspires its more than 275,000 team members to remain “absolutely, positively” focused on safety, the highest ethical and professional standards and the needs of their customers and communities. For more information, visit news.fedex.com .

Certain statements in this press release may be considered forward-looking statements, such as statements relating to management’s views with respect to future events and financial performance. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from historical experience or from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, economic conditions in the global markets in which we operate, legal challenges or changes related to FedEx Ground’s owner-operators, new U.S. domestic or international government regulation, the impact from any terrorist activities or international conflicts, our ability to effectively operate, integrate and leverage acquired businesses, changes in fuel prices and currency exchange rates, our ability to match capacity to shifting volume levels and other factors which can be found in FedEx Corp.’s and its subsidiaries’ press releases and filings with the SEC.

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See Also:

• FedEx Inflation: Raising Rates To Protect Margins (FDX)
• No Green Shoots From FedEx (FDX)
• FedEx: $130 Oil Is Killing Us

Filed under: Budget, GM, Opel, Electric

General Motors has declared that Opel needs a minicar, a tiny little thing that can compete with runabouts like the Ford Ka and Peugeot 107. That’s a fine sentiment here at the starting line, but to get to the finish GM will need to keep Opel running smoothly, get its Spark firing quickly (if indeed it aims to use that as an Opel), and lure some eyeballs away from the two dozen minicars currently in the segment and the ones on the way from the likes of Volkswagen and Toyota.

Opel showed off the Trixx Concept (pictured) five years ago, but it was left out back to die in favor of the Spark. Five years on, the Spark hasn’t arrived, meanwhile the Ford Ka has solidified its position with 500,000 sales in the UK alone over the last 13 years, the equally cheap and cuter-than-kittens Fiat 500 is still winning awards and stealing hearts and the VW Up! is banging drums.

When Magna was going to purchase Opel it said it would have a minicar for the brand by 2012. GM gave no timeline for its arrival, but did say that it was also looking at battery-powered electric cars — possibly an electric Spark with the help of Reva? Whatever it is — as long as it’s good — it can’t come too soon.

[Source: Automotive News – Sub. Req.]

REPORT: Minicar, EV on the way from Opel originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For lunch, I was craving a BLT but didn’t have any tomato or lettuce but I did have some avocado and a kiwi. I thought, “Eh, what the heck.” Why not try the kiwi in lieu of tomato. Both are fruits right?

OMG! It was really good. In addition to the Black Forest bacon, honey turkey, avocado, and kiwi, I used Brianna’s Poppyseed dressing, some spicy honey mustard, and Whole Foods Bakery sweet multi-grain bread. As you can see, I’m big into the sweet & zesty.

I particularly enjoyed the sweet of the kiwi with the salty of the bacon. To me, the two flavors complimented well. Who knew!

Top Line Process Equipment sells Top-Flo TF4 Series Food Grade Automated Ball Valve With Moniteur Devicenet switchpackages and Low Power Namur Mount Type Solenoid Valve to a leading food manufacturer. Top Line Ball Valves are engineered to be the finest in the industry. Each valve is built to exacting specifications and is constructed to perform flawlessly in the most hostile environment. Top Line’s Ball Valves are utilized by firms which demand the uncompromised ability to regulate flow – from full flow open to various degrees of closure.

HAVANT, UK… Diversified industrial manufacturer Eaton Corporation has added a new Series 760 variable displacement closed circuit piston-type pump and fixed motor to its heavy-duty product offering. Intended primarily for mobile vehicle applications, the new pumps and motors are available with displacements of 130cc/rev at 3200 rpm operating speed, and 160cc/rev at 2950 rpm operating speed. Working pressure for both displacements is 430 bar, with a high pressure relief setting of 465 bar for the pump. Both pumps and motors have a SAE D-flange mount. Key benefits of the new Series 760 pumps and motors are a high-efficiency inline axial piston design with high-speed/high-flow capabilities and high corner power. A full range of features and options are included in a durable, exceptionally quiet, package. Standard features of the new pumps include a high displacement integral charge pump and same-side porting. Bolt-on valves and rear ports are optional. The motor features a standard integral shuttle valve design with optional bolt-on valve configurations for same side or rear ports. Typical applications for Series 760 pumps include drilling and associated equipment, sewer cleaning equipment, agricultural sprayers and harvesters, tub grinders, railway maintenance equipment, material handling systems, marine thrusters, snow groomers, earthmoving and construction equipment, and directional drilling machines.
More information: [email protected] or www.eaton.com

Filed under: Recalls, Safety

A few weeks ago, we learned that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ruled that the crash of a loaner Lexus ES350 that killed San Diego police officer Mark Saylor, his wife, 13-year-old daughter and brother in law was not just the result of an improper RX400h floor mat sticking the accelerator wide open it was due to a range of factors. In addition to the car having the wrong mats, the brake “rotors were discolored and heated, had very rough surfaces, had substantial deposits of brake pad material, and showed signs of bright orange oxidation on the cooling fins consistent with endured braking.”

According to the San Diego Union Tribune, it turns out that three days before the crash, Frank Bernard had been given the loaner Lexus and experienced the floor mat sticking the throttle wide open. “[W]hile merging onto Interstate 15 from the Poway Road on-ramp, [Bernard] took his foot off the gas and the car kept accelerating, to 85 mph.” Here’s where it gets even more tragic:

“Bernard pressed long and hard on the brakes and was able to pull over and slow down. He put the car into neutral, but the engine continued to race at full speed. After several failed attempts at turning off the engine, he realized the floor mat had jammed the gas pedal. He slid his foot under the accelerator, dislodged it and had no further problems, the report says.”

As stated above, without brake-assist (which would disappear after a few moments due to loss of engine vacuum at wide-open throttle) Bernard was able to stop the car, but the brakes would have been fairly stressed. Bernard returned the car to the dealership, but only told a receptionist about the floor mat incident. For her part, the receptionist at first stated she didn’t remember Bernard or his story, but later changed her tune, stating that she told a vehicle specialist about the issue. The vehicle specialist denies ever hearing about it. And the vice president of Bob Baker Lexus El Cajon has no comment.

The question then becomes if the proper personnel had been alerted to Mr. Bernard’s incident, would the ES350 have received new brakes and the correct mats before it was lent to the Saylors? It should also be noted that the ES350 was loaned to two other customers between Bernard and the Saylors without incident. Toyota has since recalled 3.8 million vehicles to reshape and replace accelerator pedals.

[Source: San Diego Union Tribune]

REPORT: Prior driver of loaner Lexus in fatal crash told dealer of floormat issue originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com.
Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author.

Reader JohnForDummies alerts us to yet another example of extreme “ownership culture” found in a Stack Overflow query from a guy who works in IT for a school district. The school district needed to export a list of all its students every year to send to a company that handles their online exams — and for years (before this guy was hired in IT), the district had contracted out the process to a guy who charged them $500 per year, to basically write and then run an SQL query that exported the data. Each year, all he had to do was change the date, but he still charged them $500. So the IT guy figures that he can change the date himself, but noticed that the contractor had put a nice copyright notice in the file:

// This code was writtend by [the guy]
// and is the property of [his company]…Copyright 2005,2006,2008,2009
// This code MAY NOT BE USED without the expressed written consent of
// [his company].

The Stack Overflow community basically suggested that the best course of action is to rewrite the query (even potentially asking the Stack Overflow community via a separate entry, with the details of what the query needs to do), but it does raise some basic questions about whether or not an SQL query can be covered by copyright. The answer, tragically, might be more complicated than it needs to be, but assuming that the query wasn’t anything really out of the ordinary, it’s difficult to see how a single SQL query, by itself, would be considered unique enough to be covered by copyright. However, I’m sure there will be differences of opinion here, so let’s see if any of our copyright lawyer readership would like to weigh in on this one… As for the IT folks, it would be interesting to see what people think of the idea of copyrighting a single SQL query for something like this.

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Asia, Globe | Subterranean Sites

In 326 B.C. Alexander the Great, the Greek King famous for conquering an empire ranging from Asia into Africa and Europe, was making his way across Pakistan. Stopping his army for a rest in the area now known as Khewra, Alexander’s horse began licking the stones on the ground. Seeing that all the horses were doing so and taking note, a soldier himself tried one and found that the rocks were quite salty. The Khewra salt deposits had been discovered.

Today, some 2330 years later, the Khewra salt mines are the second largest in the world — behind the Sifto Canada, Inc. salt mine in Goderich Ontario — turning out 325,000 tons of salt per year, and an estimated 220 million tons over its lifetime. This is barely even a dent in the massive salt stores here which are said to be 6.687 billion tons. Officially, salt mining isn’t recorded until the 1200s under the Janjua-Raja’ tribe, but salt has probably been mined and traded here since Alexanders time.

Covering an area of 110 sq. km, 228 meters or 748 feet deep, (with 11 separate stories) the massive mine has over 40 kilometers of tunnels running some 730 meters, or nearly half a mile into the mountain under which the salt deposits are found. To keep the huge space from collapsing in on itself only fifty percent of the salt found is mined the other half serving as massive columns to hold up the mine. With such a massive area, a large workforce, and the ease of carving and building with salt bricks, some interesting sights have been built within the salt mine.

Among the earliest structure built within the mine, is the small Badshahi Mosque complete with a small salt minaret. Built more recently specifically to attract tourists are small salt versions of the Great Wall of China, the Mall road of Murree, Lahore’s Shimla hill, and the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore. Both the mosque and the miniatures are built from salt brick, which vary in color from red to pink to white, and which are now lit with electric lights and radiate a beautiful warm glow. The varied colors and bricks of light, at times, give the mine a sort of disco-yellow-brick-road look.

Other sights, and there are many, include a 75 meter tall “assembly hall” chamber with stairs spiraling up the walls, a 25 foot long Salt Bridge called the Pul-saraat ( an illusion to the Islamic “Pul-e-Saraat” a bridge ou must cross on judgment day and described as ‘thinner than a strand of hair, and sharper than a sword’), brine ponds, and beautiful salt crystal formations such as stalactites. Much of this can be seen from the narrow gauge electric railway, in place since the 1930s, which once extracted salt from the mines, and now brings tourists into them.

The Khewra salt mine even has it’s own fully functioning postal office within it, for use by the workers. The post office is built entirely from salt bricks, and is the only post office built out of salt in the world.

While a popular tourist destination today, the salt mines were the scene of brutal oppression and forced work by the British in the 1800s. Miners were locked into the mines and not allowed to leave until they fulfilled their quotas. This included pregnant women and children, and a number of children were born within the mine, due to this policy. Strikes were met with violence from the British and in 1876 twelve minors were shot and killed at the entrance to the mines. Their graves can be seen at the middle gates of the mines.

One can taste the output of this salt mine, by going to their local grocery and looking for “Himalayan Salt” a reddish or pink rock salt. It is significantly more delicious then your average table salt, and comes with a much more interesting back story.

October saw U.S. consumers’ outstanding credit balances fall by 3.25%, the ninth straight month in a row balances have fallen. It seems clear now that Americans have learned that “credit” is not synonymous with “free money.”

Below, the report from The Fed:

Fed Consumer Credit Oct 2009 –

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See Also:

• Consumer Credit Plunges
• Gartman: Here’s Why Credit Card Delinquencies Fell To 1.1%
• 10 Ways Credit Card Companies Are Still Screwing You

The Mortgage Bankers Assocation (via Rolfe Winkler) is out with its latest look at loan delinquencies across a variety of investor groups.

The one trend: up.

CMBS has now crossed the 4% delinquency rate, though at least there are some signs of a turn, rather than just a pure straight line.

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When pen-testing a corporation, always look for the Guest WLAN. If there is one and you manage to get on it, you are in luck!
Corporate Guest WLANs are a great place to get a lot of interesting and possibly confidential information without much effort. And this is simply because there are a lot of corporate laptops on the same WLAN.

Ofcourse, you’ll discuss that the corporate devices have wired access to the internet, which is much more reliable and faster. But also, the wired infrastructure is fully controlled by IT – with web filters, content filters etc. So on the guest WLAN you can easily find the following high-profile targets related to the corporation:

1. corporate laptop holders – usually employees higher in the hierarchy who just got bored from the restrictions of the corporate Internet filters can easily turn on their wi-fi and check the private e-mail, or just download something.
2. corporate guests – most visitors to corporations have WLAN enabled devices, ranging from mobile phones/pda, over netbooks to full blown laptops
3. external contractors – a lot of corporations will isolate external contractors to the guest WLAN for internet access.

The following diagram is an example of hunting for interesting targets in the corporate WLAN

The diagram clearly depicts the high concentration of possible high profile targets – marked in red color.

One can always make the argument that the same attack can be made within a Mall, or even in the home networks of those interesting targets. This argument is completely true, but in a Mall your high profile targets are blended in the multitude of the students, casual freebie surfers and even the mall store clerks with their WLAN devices.

And the home environment is even more difficult, because the high profile targets are dispersed all over the city, and you may not know where they reside. So, sniffing the networks one specific high profile target will bring a lot of costs to the attacker.

The following diagram is an example of the difficulties in sniffing for interesting targets in the home or public places WLAN

So, for my money, I’ll always prefer to sniff for traffic in the corporate guest WLAN

Talkback and comments are most welcome

Related posts
5 Rules to Home Wi-Fi Security
Example – Bypassing WiFi MAC Address Restriction
Obtaining a valid MAC address to bypass WiFi MAC Restriction
DHCP Security – The most overlooked service on the network

Residents in Arizona and New Mexico should check with stores to see if purchased ground beef may be affected by a recall that was announced earlier today.

The USDA says the meat recall affects beef packed at Beef Packers Inc. of Fresno, California. They produced 2,723 pounds of the affected ground beef on September 23. The beef was repackaged in Arizona and sold under different brand names. The recalled ground beef is believed to be associated with two cases of the Salmonella Newport strain in Arizona. Unfortunately, that strain is resistant to many common drugs, and that means that the risk of treatment failure and hospitalization is increased.

According to the USDA, the recalled ground beef bears the establishment number “EST. 31913,” but since the meat was repackaged, consumers in Arizona and New Mexico will need to check with stores to see if they’ve purchased the recalled ground beef.

If you have questions about the recall, contact the Beef Packers Consumer Line at (877) 435-4071.

Consuming foods contaminated with Salmonella may cause salmonellosis. The illness may be life-threatening, particularly to people with weak immune systems.

Symptoms of salmonellosis occur within eight to 72 hours and may include diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever. Additional symptoms that can last up to 7 days may include chills, headache, nausea and vomiting.

The USDA says that raw ground beef should be cooked to a temperature of 160° F and tested with a food thermometer to make sure the appropriate internal temp has been reached. Poultry should reach 165° F.

(Image via stock.xchng)

Post from: Blisstree

Beef Recall in Two States

Filed under: Europe, Hatchback, Volkswagen, Electric, Diesel

Volkswagen Group of America President, Stefan Jacoby, has confirmed that the next-gen New Beetle, due to hit North American as a 2012 model, will be offered with a clean diesel engine. The current New Beetle was last offered with a 1.9-liter TDI in 2006, but was discontinued the following year due to tougher emissions requirements.

In addition, the U.S. market will reportedly get an electrified version of the Up! hatchback in 2014, but it will not be the gasoline version (the diesel/electric Up! Lite concept debuted at the LA Auto Show last week). Ulrich Hackenberg, head of technical development for Volkswagen AG, says the car will be manufactured in Germany and sold in the European marketplace before it makes its way across the Atlantic.

The complete Up! lineup — including a hatchback, minivan, and sedan — all are slated to go on sale in Europe during 2011. but still no word on which models will make it to the U.S.

[Source: Automotive News – Sub. Req.]

REPORT: Diesel Beetle, electric Up! coming from Volkswagen originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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