Author: kurt

Today, Facebook announced new privacy controls and settings in response to the tremendous public outcry over its April changes. Here we explain step-by-step how to take advantage of the new settings and maximize your privacy on Facebook.

This is important because you must take affirmative steps to adjust your settings in order to take full advantage of the revised privacy practices. While some information, such as your name, profile picture and gender, will remain publicly available, these steps are designed to provide as much privacy as Facebook’s new system allows. Please enjoy our video, which goes through each of the steps detailed below.

Step by Step to Maximize Privacy

First, log in to Facebook. Click on the “Account” pull down menu in the top right corner, and select “Privacy Settings.” Facebook is rolling out these changes gradually, and not all users will have the new options right away. If you see “Choose Your Privacy Settings” on the top of the privacy settings page, then congratulations, you have the new privacy options. Otherwise, you will have to wait until the rollout reaches you. In the interim, you can follow our previous instructions to opt-out of Instant Personalization.

Basic Directory Information

Start with the Basic Directory Information. Click on “View Settings” at the end of the second line.

The Basic Directory Settings control how your friends, exes, enemies, government agents and everyone else might find you on Facebook. To lock down your account, set all of these to the maximum privacy available — Friends Only, except for “Send me friend requests,” which must be Friends of Friends or higher. Note that even if you select Friends Only for the “See my friend list,” setting, “[your] friend list is always available to applications and your connections to friends may be visible elsewhere.” Click on Back to Privacy when you are done.

Sharing on Facebook

Next, you will need to set your Sharing on Facebook preferences. To maximize privacy, click on the Friends Only tab, which will make the all available settings switch to Friends Only with one more click of the “Apply These Settings” confirmation button. Facebook promises to keep these settings sticky, so that future changes will default to the privacy level you select here. However, many users will want to customize to reflect their individual tastes. If you customize, the default for future features will be Facebook’s recommended setting.

To customize, click on “Customize settings.” This brings up a new page, where the setting for each element of your profile can be tuned individually. You should review these settings, and modify any that you would like to share more widely than Friends Only.

At the bottom of the first section, you will see another link, “Edit album privacy for existing photos.” Click this to modify your photo settings on an album-by-album basis.

Click the back button in your browser to return to the customization page, and complete your review. When finished, click Back to Privacy to return the main page.

Applications and Websites

Click on “Edit your settings” under Applications and Websites, in the lower left region of the Privacy page. This brings you to the application page, which has several submenus. First, check your “Game and application activity” setting, which should be Friends Only if you’ve followed the instructions so far.

Next, to control what happens to your information when your friends sign up for an app or website, click the first Edit Settings button. Uncheck all the boxes that show up in the dialog box. Note that “your name, profile picture, gender, networks and user ID (along with any other information you’ve set to everyone) is available to friends’ applications unless you turn off platform applications and websites.” Save changes and click Okay.

The next setting controls Instant Personalization, the controversial program by which your information is shared with Yelp, Pandora and Microsoft by default. To opt out, click “Edit Settings.” Scroll to the bottom and deselect the check box. Click Confirm. Click Back to Applications.

Public search sets when search engines like Bing or Google can find your on Facebook. “Edit Settings” brings up a new page. If you have followed these instructions, “Enable public search” should be off already. After confirming that public search is not enabled, click Back to Applications.

Even with these settings, Platform applications can still see the information Facebook deems public — name, profile picture, gender, etc — even if you deselected everything in the “Info accessible through your friends” control. To more fully protect your information, you can choose to turn off all platform applications. However, the consequence is that you cannot use any platform applications, and you may lose data held by apps that you delete. There is currently no option to block all applications except the ones you choose. If you want the most protection and do not want to continue to use any Facebook apps, click on “Turn off all platform applications.” You will see the apps that you will lose, and must select all of them before you can click the button to Turn Off Platform.

Congratulations, you’ve now maximized your privacy settings on Facebook. If you have any trouble following these instructions, please contact Facebook’s technical support. And if you find this tutorial to be useful, consider supporting our work to help protect your privacy online.

Social network service providers today are in a unique position. They are intermediaries and hosts to our communications, conversations and connections with loved ones, family, friends and colleagues. They have access to extremely sensitive information, including data gathered over time and from many different individuals.

Here at EFF, we’ve been thinking a lot recently about what specific rights a responsible social network service should provide to its users. Social network services must ensure that users have ongoing privacy and control over personal information stored with the service. Users are not just a commodity, and their rights must be respected. Innovation in social network services is important, but it must remain consistent with, rather than undermine, user privacy and control. Based on what we see today, therefore, we suggest three basic privacy-protective principles that social network users should demand:

#1: The Right to Informed Decision-Making

Users should have the right to a clear user interface that allows them to make informed choices about who sees their data and how it is used.

Users should be able to see readily who is entitled to access any particular piece of information about them, including other people, government officials, websites, applications, advertisers and advertising networks and services.

Whenever possible, a social network service should give users notice when the government or a private party uses legal or administrative processes to seek information about them, so that users have a meaningful opportunity to respond.

#2: The Right to Control

Social network services must ensure that users retain control over the use and disclosure of their data. A social network service should take only a limited license to use data for the purpose for which it was originally given to the provider. When the service wants to make a secondary use of the data, it must obtain explicit opt-in permission from the user. The right to control includes users’ right to decide whether their friends may authorize the service to disclose their personal information to third-party websites and applications.

Social network services must ask their users’ permission before making any change that could share new data about users, share users’ data with new categories of people, or use that data in a new way. Changes like this should be “opt-in” by default, not “opt-out,” meaning that users’ data is not shared unless a user makes an informed decision to share it. If a social network service is adding some functionality that its users really want, then it should not have to resort to unclear or misleading interfaces to get people to use it.

#3: The Right to Leave

Users giveth, and users should have the right to taketh away.

One of the most basic ways that users can protect their privacy is by leaving a social network service that does not sufficiently protect it. Therefore, a user should have the right to delete data or her entire account from a social network service. And we mean really delete. It is not enough for a service to disable access to data while continuing to store or use it. It should be permanently eliminated from the service’s servers.

Furthermore, if users decide to leave a social network service, they should be able to easily, efficiently and freely take their uploaded information away from that service and move it to a different one in a usable format. This concept, known as “data portability” or “data liberation,” is fundamental to promote competition and ensure that users truly maintains control over their information, even if they sever their relationship with a particular service.

We’re excited to report a great response to our inaugural Defcon 18 Getaway Contest since we announced it two weeks ago. Seventy-one participants have raised over $1900 so far!

Registration is still open, and the contest is still very much up for grabs! Current first place team Holy Handgrenades is sitting pretty at $575, with individual contestants Evan Keiser at second place with $65 and Robert Rowley at third place with $25. The pool of fabulous prizes is still within your reach!

Big thanks to Ninja Networks and Friends for sponsoring the contest and raising over $1200; however, contestants please note that its team has declared themselves ineligible for the prize package, leaving the contest wide open. Form a team; put a badge up on your blog; ask your friends and family — there are lots of ways to help EFF and compete for the prizes. (See Official Rules for full details).

EFF is also thrilled to announce that security firms iSEC Partners and IOActive have joined us to sponsor the Defcon Getaway Contest! We’re grateful for their support of the contest and EFF’s Coders’ Rights Project.

iSEC Partners is a proven full-service security consulting firm that provides penetration testing, secure systems development, security education and software design verification. iSEC Partners’ security assessments leverage our extensive knowledge of current security vulnerabilities, penetration techniques and software development best practices to enable customers to secure their applications against ever-present threats on the Internet.

Established in 1998, IOActive is an industry leader that offers comprehensive computer security services with specializations in smart grid technologies, software assurance, and compliance. Boasting a well-rounded and diverse clientele, IOActive works with a majority of Global 500 companies including power and utility, hardware, retail, financial, media, router, aerospace, high-tech, and software development organizations.

Stay tuned for more developments and updates regarding EFF’s Defcon Getaway Contest. If you haven’t already registered, what are you waiting for? Click here, and see you in Vegas!

Since its incorporation just over five years ago, Facebook has undergone a remarkable transformation. When it started, it was a private space for communication with a group of your choice. Soon, it transformed into a platform where much of your information is public by default. Today, it has become a platform where you have no choice but to make certain information public, and this public information may be shared by Facebook with its partner websites and used to target ads.

To help illustrate Facebook’s shift away from privacy, we have highlighted some excerpts from Facebook’s privacy policies over the years. Watch closely as your privacy disappears, one small change at a time!

Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2005:

No personal information that you submit to Thefacebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2006:

We understand you may not want everyone in the world to have the information you share on Facebook; that is why we give you control of your information. Our default privacy settings limit the information displayed in your profile to your school, your specified local area, and other reasonable community limitations that we tell you about.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2007:

Profile information you submit to Facebook will be available to users of Facebook who belong to at least one of the networks you allow to access the information through your privacy settings (e.g., school, geography, friends of friends). Your name, school name, and profile picture thumbnail will be available in search results across the Facebook network unless you alter your privacy settings.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa November 2009:

Facebook is designed to make it easy for you to share your information with anyone you want. You decide how much information you feel comfortable sharing on Facebook and you control how it is distributed through your privacy settings. You should review the default privacy settings and change them if necessary to reflect your preferences. You should also consider your settings whenever you share information. …

Information set to “everyone” is publicly available information, may be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), is subject to indexing by third party search engines, may be associated with you outside of Facebook (such as when you visit other sites on the internet), and may be imported and exported by us and others without privacy limitations. The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” You can review and change the default settings in your privacy settings.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa December 2009:

Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to everyone, including Facebook-enhanced applications, and therefore do not have privacy settings. You can, however, limit the ability of others to find this information through search using your search privacy settings.

Current Facebook Privacy Policy, as of April 2010:

When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. … The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” … Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.

Viewed together, the successive policies tell a clear story. Facebook originally earned its core base of users by offering them simple and powerful controls over their personal information. As Facebook grew larger and became more important, it could have chosen to maintain or improve those controls. Instead, it’s slowly but surely helped itself — and its advertising and business partners — to more and more of its users’ information, while limiting the users’ options to control their own information.

Yesterday, Facebook announced Instant Personalization, whereby select websites would “personalize your experience using your public Facebook information.” The initial sites are Pandora, Yelp and Microsoft Docs. As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained, this means that when you visit “Pandora for the first time, it can immediately start playing songs from bands you’ve liked.” Pandora, and other partners, can also link your real name and other Facebook information with everything you do on their site.

More specifically, these sites “may access any information you have made visible to Everyone … as well as your publicly available information. This includes your Name, Profile Picture, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages.” On Monday, Facebook announced a transition where a “new type of Facebook Page” will make the “current city, hometown, education and work, and likes and interests sections of your profile” publicly available after you go through the transition tool (or those items will be deleted).

By default, the “Allow” checkbox for Instant Personalization is checked on your privacy settings. If you don’t want the websites that you or your Facebook friends visit to know your information, you must opt out. Since this process is a bit complicated, we have made a quick video showing step by step how to do so.

Simply unchecking the “Allow” box is not sufficient. As Facebook explains, “if you opt out, your friends may still share public Facebook information about you to personalize their experience on these partner sites unless you block the application.” Nor can you go to the Block Applications setting to block these partner sites. This setting is only for showing which applications and sites are blocked, and unblocking them.

So, to opt out of this fully, you also need to go each page for Microsoft Docs, Pandora, and Yelp and push the Block Application button. If Facebook adds another partner site to the program, you will need to block that as well, so be sure to check back often.

You may also want to review the settings for what friends can share and sharing your profile information.

Today, Google launched a fascinating new feature listing requests from government agencies for removal of content on Google and YouTube and for corresponding user information. Set up as a map, the Government Requests tool shows various countries around the world and lists the number of requests from that country between July and December of last year. You can learn, for example, that Brazil is the most prolific sender of content takedown requests to Google, or that Google did not comply with any requests from Pakistan.

The information is far from complete, notably missing China, which considers any such requests a state secret. The United States also restricts disclosure of some user information requests, such as National Security Letters. Nevertheless, Google’s Government Requests tool is a tremendously important first step towards informing the public about the extent to which governments around the world seek information about them and we commend Google for creating it. Historically, much of this information was tightly held by governments and service providers, and the public had little ability to review government encroachment into their private spaces. As we push for strengthening the federal privacy law regulating government access to Internet communications and records as part of the Digital Due Process coalition, this information will be an important part of the ongoing debate.

Moving forward, we’d love to see more detail. It would be useful to know whether the takedown was due to allegations of (for example) indecency, hate speech, lese majesty, other something else. Was the user information request seeking to identify a anonymous speaker or to gather further information about a known person? More detail for large countries like the United States would also be welcome, breaking down the countrywide number into each state or province. To have a complete picture, we’d also like to see statistics for how often Google disclosed data in response, broken down by jurisdiction.

As we move further into an era of cloud computing in which people entrust an ever-increasing amount of their personal, even intimate, information to corporations, other internet companies should offer improved transparency to help protect against government prying. Google’s new Government Requests tool is a welcome start, an example we hope many more companies promptly follow. Indeed, the best solution for transparency and openness might be a universal tool, including all the major service providers.

Once upon a time, Facebook could be used simply to share your interests and information with a select small community of your own choosing. As Facebook’s privacy policy once promised, “No personal information that you submit to Facebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.”

How times have changed.

Today, Facebook removed its users’ ability to control who can see their own interests and personal information. Certain parts of users’ profiles, “including your current city, hometown, education and work, and likes and interests” will now be transformed into “connections,” meaning that they will be shared publicly. If you don’t want these parts of your profile to be made public, your only option is to delete them.

The example Facebook uses in its announcement is a page for “Cooking.” Previously, you could list “cooking” as an activity you liked on your profile, but your name would not be added to any formal “Cooking” page. (Under the old system, you could become a “fan” of cooking if you wanted). But now, the new Cooking page will publicly display all of the millions of people who list cooking as an activity.

Cooking is not very controversial or privacy-sensitive, and thus makes for a good example from Facebook’s perspective. Who would want to conceal their interest in cooking? Of course, the new program will also create public lists for controversial issues, such as an interest in abortion rights, gay marriage, marijuana, tea parties and so on.

But even for an innocuous interest like cooking, it’s not clear how this change is meant to benefit Facebook’s users. An ordinary human is not going to look through the list of Facebook’s millions of cooking fans. It’s far too large. Only data miners and targeted advertisers have the time and inclination to delve that deeply.

There is one loophole — tell Facebook you’re under 18. Under Facebook’s policy for minors, your interests would only be visible for friends and family and verified networks. You would not be publicly listed on these new connection pages.

The new connections features benefit Facebook and its business partners, with little benefit to you. But what are you going to do about it? Facebook has consistently ignored demands from its users to create an easy “exit plan” for migrating their personal data to another social networking website, even as it has continued — one small privacy policy update after another — to reduce its users’ control over their information.

The answer: Let Facebook hear your frustration. Last December, when Facebook announced a new round of privacy degradations, it provoked a potent combination of public outrage, legal threats, and government investigations. In response, Facebook listened to some criticism and walked-back a few of its changes. Now it will allow users to adjust the visibility of information in their profiles, such as hiding your friend list from other friends. If you want Facebook to walk back these new changes too, let them know how you feel.

Jenson Button earned his second victory of the year, and the F1 points lead, in a rain soaked Chinese Grand Prix. Button, known for his conservative driving style, was able to preserve his intermediate rain tires long enough to hold off a challenge from his McLaren Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton. Nico Rosberg, driving for Mercedes, rounded out the podium spots.

There was plenty of wheel to wheel drama, despite the weather. Hamilton and Red Bull driver Mark Webber earned reprimands for their aggressive driving through pit lane. Hamilton and Webber had been dicing at pit entry, and Hamilton used the insinde lane to pass Weber going into the pits. Released by his McLaren Mercedes crew as Weber was alongside, Hamilton tried to beat Webber exiting the pits. Webber, driving for Red Bull Renault, was having none of it and tried to hold Hamilton to the inside lane. Sanity prevailed and Hamilton lifted to allow Webber by.

Michael Schumacher had a good race despite his tenth place finish. The Mercedes driver showed flashes of brilliance in his wet-track battles with Felipe Massa (Ferrari) , Lewis Hamilton and Vitaly Petrov (Renault).

It’s been at least two days since Toyota was in the news, so here’s the latest: the automaker is recalling some 600,000 Sienna minivans manufactured between 1998 and 2010. In areas where road salt is used in winter, the cables that retain the spare tire under the rear of the vehicle can become corroded and break, creating a road hazard for vehicles following behind. Although Toyota doesn’t have a long term fix for the issue as of now, they will inspect Siennas in high risk states and replace corroded cables as required.

Toyota will mail notification to Sienna owners in effected states, and plans a follow-up mailing when a permanent solution has been developed.

Source: Toyota recalls 600,000 1998-2010 Sienna minivans

Torque is a measure of rotational force. Given the rotational force exhibited by this ’60 Impala, I think we should stop using “foot pounds” as a standard of measurement and start using Impalas, where one Impala equals a thousand foot pounds of torque.

I have no idea how this car keeps it’s windshield in place ot the doors shut. That motor must be making some serious power to loft the front end and twist the frame like that.

Source: Bangshift

If you’ve been following the development of the 2011 Ford Explorer, you can’t help but wonder if the classic SUV has been neutered to become just another cute ute. After all, base models will be powered by an EcoBoost four cylinder motor, it features unibody construction and it powers the wrong wheels unless you opt for the four wheel drive version. All these changes may produce a more fuel efficient Explorer, but can you still take it off road?

Feat not, lovers of the blue oval. On 4wd Explorer models, Ford will be re-using the terrain management technology developed for Land Rover, before the brand was spun off to Tata. By adjusting a knob located near the shifter, the driver can select one of four terrain modes plus hill descent. “Normal” is used for driving on pavement, “Mud” allows wheelspin to build momentum in the sticky stuff, “Sand” maximizes torque and “Snow” limits torque to prevent wheelspin. Hill descent allows the driver to crawl down steep or loose surfaces without locking the brakes and loosing traction.

The 2011 Ford Explorer won’t be challenging Jeep Rubicons or Toyota FJ Cruisers for off-road ability, but that never was the purpose of the Explorer. They’re bought to drive the kids to soccer practice, take the dog to the vet, haul mulch from Home Depot and get you safely from Point A to Point B in all kinds of weather. Since only 10% of SUV buyers ever take their vehicles off road, I’d say the new Explorer is probably right on the money.

Aimed at Honda’s CR-Z product launches in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, this video captures the essence of driving Honda’s new ecologically minded, pseudo-hoon mobile. The video’s got it all – driving gloves (which kind of gave me douche chills), a vaguely familiar pop soundtrack, space age “Time Tunnel” instrument beauty shots, clever use of reflective surfaces, long exposures to show taillights fading into the darkness, futuristic text appearing from nowhere and spooky mood-setting smoke. Hell, it’s got frickin’ lasers. Lasers, man. In green blue AND red.

I still want to drive the 2011 Honda CR-Z, and I sure wouldn’t mind driving it on the Spanish roads featured in the video. I wouldn’t want them filming the speedometer, though, since I wouldn’t be paying much attention to socially responsible (or ecologically sensible) speeds.

Source: VIDEO: New Honda CR-Z Coupe Launch Film For Europe, Middle East and Africa

Ah, the perks of being a star in Hollywood. In addition to money, sex, glamour and free schwag, you occasionally get asked to do things like drive a race car for charity. Through the streets of Long Beach. At full tilt.

I’m down for anything that involves using someone else’s gas, brakes, tires and paint, especially when I’m expected to drive in full-hoon mode with no repercussions. I was available this weekend, but sadly, yours truly didn’t make the cut. We internet journalists just don’t get the respect we deserve, or maybe we’re just not pretty enough for celebrity racing.

In case you’re curious who’ll be trading paint in race prepped Scion tCs, this years field includes Adam Carolla, Adrien Brody, Anthony Anderson, Brian Austin Green, Christian Slater, Jesse McCartney, Keanu Reeves, Patrick Warburton, Tika Sumpter, Tony Hawk and Zachary Levi. On the “pro” side of the coin, entrants are Jimmy Vasser, Steve Millen, Tanner Foust and Marty Nothstein.

Toyota donates $5,000.00 per entrant to “Racing For Kids”, which supports children’s hospitals in southern California. Toyota also donates another $5,000.00 to the charity of choice for each entrant, and People magazine makes a $15,000 donation on behalf of the driver that captures the pole.

Source: Horsepower Driven By Star Power: 2010 Toyota Pro / Celebrity Race Drivers Announced

No one knows exactly how much oil is left hidden beneath the earth’s surface, but we can all agree on one thing: it is a finite supply. The U.S. military is well aware of this, and is looking at developing alternative energy solutions for troop and material deployment to preserve the fossil fuel we have left. As you’d imagine, the Department of Defense probably has more than a few people assigned to the task of projecting just how much fermented dinosaur juice remains untapped. Their recent findings don’t bode well for those of us who enjoy the sound of a V8 at full throttle.

Per the D.O.D’s less-than-optimistic projections, surplus oil production will cease as soon as 2012, with production falling behind demand to the tune of 10 million barrels per day by 2015. Worldwide demand for oil is expected to exceed 86.6 million barrels per day in 2010, exceeding the record of 86.5 million barrels per day set in 2007, before the global economy was flushed down the crapper. Add in the growing demand for automobiles in places like China and India, and you can safely bet that worldwide demand for fossil fuel isn’t going to be decreasing any time soon.

Let’s hope that these projections are truly the dire worst case; after all, our military isn’t known for viewing the glass as being half full. As unpleasant as it may be, I can learn to embrace a future without gasoline powered cars and motorcycles (once the bugs are worked out of electric vehicles, of course). It’s the rest of the baggage associated with the collapse of the oil industry that concerns me.

Source: US Military Sees Massive Oil Shortages As Soon As 2015

It’s been almost a year since we printed 25 Awsome Jeremy Clarkson Quotes; despite this, it remains one of our most popular and most searched topics. Who doesn’t admire Jezza’s sense of humor and his ability to drive a car at speed. His fixation on British cars may be a bit odd, as is his insistance that American cars have electrical problems, but we love him anyway. In honor of the weekend, here are a few more Clarkson quotes for you to enjoy.

On Lancia automobiles

On driving a Lancia Stratos kit car: “The steering wheel is perilously close to where my testes used to be before the seat belt jammed them up into my lungs.”

On the build quality of the Lancia Beta: “It was made of steel so thin that on a windy day it would actually change shape.”

On the styling of the Lancia Fulvia: “It really is as pretty as the sun setting over Charlize Theron.”

On women in cars

On women driving the Renault Scenic, a boxy four door hatchback: “It is the oddest thing, but I’ve never seen anyone driving a Scenic with whom I would like to mate. Once I saw a pretty girl in a Prius, and occasionally you see someone ageing well in a Peugeot. But Scenics are always driven by gargoyles.”

On women who drive fast cars: “There is nothing to warm the cockles of my tumescence more than the sight of a girl in a serious car. Emma Parker-Bowles, for instance, has a Mitsubishi Evo VIII and the thought of that, honestly, keeps me awake at night.Just yesterday I saw a middle-aged housewife in rural clothes screaming down the M40 in a Lotus Elise. I nearly grew a third leg.”

On his wife’s ability to multitask: “My wife can cook supper, pacify a baby and make complicated tennis arrangements with friends on the phone all at the same time. And not once has she ever put the receiver down to find she’s inadvertently cooked the baby and rocked the sausages to sleep.”

On cars with overly stiff suspensions

On the Porsche 911 GT3: “In essence, it’s a stripped out, ready-to-race version of the Carrera 2. So you get a roll cage instead of back seats and a massive fuel tank instead of a boot. You also get tyres that are nigh on slick, a spoiler big enough to serve as a landing strip for small aircraft and a ride quality with all the give and compliance of a Chechen terrorist.”

On the Renault Twingo Sport’s harsh ride: “On some bumps, the jolt is so bad that your lungs can come off.”

On various BMWs

On the new M5: “There is only one feature in the M5’s electronic armoury that’s good; it’s a little button marked with an M on the steering wheel. Quite what M might stand for, I have no idea. Motorsport? Mohawk? Mombasa? I like to think it might be M*********** because that’s the effect it has.”

On the motor in the BMW X5, M version: “The results (of the M spec motor) are as dramatic as putting a furious weasel in your underpants. This car would be less annoying to ecomentalists if it ran on sliced dolphin.”

On various Audis

On Audi’s Q7, equipped with the V12 TDI motor: “The whole point of buying a diesel car is to save money. Having a V12 turbo diesel is like turning your central heating off at home and then keeping warm by burning Rembrandts.”

On Audi’s versus Trabants: “It wasn’t so bad when everyone had a Trabant, but in a unified Germany they were sharing the roads with Audis, and it was a mix as devastating as Baileys and lime juice. You may remember that in ‘95 an entire East German family in their Trabant was killed when it hit an A8. And the Audi driver? He went home with a broken radiator grille.”

Miscellaneous Jezza ramblings

On driving the Bentley Brooklands on local roads: “It gave me some sense of what it would be like to park the moon.”

On cars with acoustically tuned exhausts: “The noise they make is as fake as a hooker’s smile.”

On the Corvette Z06 as a daily driver: “At low revs, the engine sounds like it’s fueled with spanners… as something to live with every day, I’d rather have bird flu.”

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It doesn’t matter what country you live in, drivers will always fail to notice motorcycle riders. No matter what tactics you use (high beam in day time, making eye contact with the driver, 300 decibel freight-train air horn, waving an AK-47) you can always plan on at least one car cutting you off per ride. Drivers simply don’t think to look for motorcycles, or can’t mentally process the approach of a motorcycle the same way they process the approach of say, a cement truck. Cell phones and other distractions only make this phenomenon worse.

In America, neither the NHTSA nor state governments do much to promote rider safety and visibility. The American Motorcyclist Association has launched a few campaigns, but they lack any emotional appeal and don’t get the exposure they need. Make people laugh, on the other hand, and maybe they’ll remember to look for motorcycle riders. At least that’s what Devon, UK has done with this of video promoting safe riding in the county.

This isn’t a new video, so skip it if you’ve seen it before. It’s got some great in-car footage of a McLaren GTR stuffing Ferrari F40s at LeMans, and you can pick up some proper heel-toe driving tips if you look close enough. I’m not sure who the driver is, but some of the in-car shots come from Andy Wallace’s McLaren F1 GTR.

Not a fan of the blues? Don’t like John Mayall? You’d rather have Andy Wallace talk you through a lap of the LeMans circuit in a McLaren GTR? OK, then, here you go:

Thanks to Autospies for dusting off the top vid; like the McLaren F1, some things just don’t go out of style.

The above TV ad is in Italian and it lacks subtitles, but who cares? It’s supposed to say something like, “When I was a child, they told me the world can’t change by simply pushing a button. But they were wrong; today, with just a click, I can change the world.” Honestly, it could say “Please spit in my pasta before you drag it across the filth-laden floor, then cop a feel from my wife before you punch me in the face” and I wouldn’t care. When a bike looks this good, all rational thought goes out the window. How could they get this bike so right, when the original Multistrada looked like a beluga whale riding a bicycle?

The 2011 Ducati Multistrada 1200 features four power delivery and suspension settings that are electronically rider adjustable. These range from Sport (full-hoon), through Touring, Urban and finally, Enduro, which is meant for the loose stuff. In addition, the rider can choose electronic weight settings based on whether he’s solo, solo with luggage, with a passenger, or with a passenger and luggage. The Multistrada 1200’s v-twin motor puts out 150 horsepower, and the bike has a dry weight of just 417 pounds. If the new Multistrada is as functional as it is beautiful, BMW’s got their work cut out for them in the dual purpose segment.

Hillbilly On Riding Mower Tasered – Watch more Funny Videos

Think you’re having a bad day? Trust me, Steve’s day is even worse. In the span of two minutes two minutes, he’s lost his cigarette, his whiskey and control of his bowels.

We don’t condone MUI (Mowing Under The Influence) here at RideLust, but if you’ve got to do it, stick to your own yard. When you’re lit up like a Christmas tree and the local deputies know you by name, even a quick ride to the Oyster Shack is a bad idea. Drinking whiskey in front of a cop, as you ride to the Oyster Shack, is an even worse idea.

Source: Break

Drivers who live in New York or Washington D.C. can breathe a sigh of relief: the average insurance cost in their state (or district) is a relative bargain when compared to Louisiana. The average premium for a resident of Louisiana is $2,510.87 per year, compared to $1,753.19 for a Washington D.C. resident and $1,463.21 for a New Yorker.

Why is insurance in Louisiana so expensive? It’s got nothing to do with accident rates, uninsured motorists or traffic violations; instead, it’s based on the amount of money insurance companies pay out to settle litigation. Louisiana law requires a jury for civil awards in excess of $50,000.00, which means that most cases settle at $49,000.00 to avoid the uncertainty of presenting a case before a jury. Louisiana also has more lawsuits and bodily injury claims per capita than most other states, factors that drive insurance costs through the roof. Surprisingly, claims from damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 did not influence insurance costs.

Rounding out the top five most expensive states are Michigan ($2,098.29), Oklahoma ($1,869.39), Montana ($1,857.96) and California ($1,774.41). On the flip side, the five cheapest states to insure a car are New Hampshire ($1,011.23), Wisconsin ($1,010.93), Ohio ($999.86), Vermont ($986.58) and Maine ($902.85). Choose your next residence accordingly.

Source: The most and least expensive states for car insurance in 2010