Facebook Is Evil!

How many of you are aware of the Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen? Although I don’t think her revelations will materially affect the company or its stock price, I think these are simply more proof of what I and many others have been saying: Facebook Is Evil! I don’t think usage will be affected because I think most people who use the “platform” are addicted and addiction beats morality almost every time. An excerpt from this CNBC article:

“The former Facebook product manager for civic misinformation told lawmakers that Facebook consistently puts its own profits over users’ health and safety, which is largely a result of its algorithms’ design that steers users toward high-engagement posts that in some cases can be more harmful. Though she stopped short of accusing top executives of intentionally creating harmful products, she said that ultimately, CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to be responsible for the impact of his business. Haugen also said that Facebook’s algorithm could steer young users from something relatively innocuous like healthy recipes to content promoting anorexia in a short period of time…the problems she saw at Facebook were worse than anywhere else she’d worked, which includes Google, Yelp and Pinterest.”

If Congress had any guts it would push the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice to break up Facebook. If my aunt had had balls, she would have been my uncle. I HATE FACEBOOK!!!

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Today’s post is “late” for good reasons. First, my wonderful wife and I had to take our 2015 Cadillac ATS into the bodyshop for the repairs caused by the accident in August. After that we decided to stop and have a nice breakfast.

Second and more important, I was able to receive my booster vaccine shot against the damn virus this morning. However, as I didn’t make an appointment I had to wait about an hour from the time I signed in until I received the shot.

Hopefully, my wonderful wife will make the time to get the booster later this week. Since she’s a “lame duck” at her job, one would think she could take a work break to get the shot.

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I am not looking that far down the alphabet in the Cars A To Z feature, but this could be the “S” car:

This is a beautiful Sunbeam Tiger in a green that is not quite British Racing Green. As regular readers know, I really like these cars.

#FacebookIsEvil!

#SunbeamTiger

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Tuesday Tigers

Congratulations to the LSU Tigers football team for winning the National Championship. I wanted them to defeat Clemson. Something I can’t really articulate about Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney just rubs me the wrong way. Also, unless it’s one of my favorite teams I don’t like to see teams repeat as champions. Clemson won the title last year and in two of the previous three years. Oh, Clemson’s team name is also the Tigers.

In my opinion, the most valuable person on the LSU team is passing game coordinator/wide receivers coach Joe Brady. He was an offensive assistant coach for the NFL’s New Orleans Saints in 2017-2018 and brought a sophisticated NFL passing scheme and concepts to LSU. Of course, the players had to assimilate and execute those concepts and they did that very well, obviously. Still, it’s like having a ringer.

Brady and the rest of the LSU staff were able to make meaningful in-game adjustments after Clemson’s defense stymied the LSU offense for the first third of the game. Contrast that to the Baltimore Ravens’ performance on Saturday night where they lost as a huge favorite at home in the NFL Divisional Playoff round in no small way due to their inability to adjust to what the Tennessee Titans were doing on defense. Of course, in the Ravens game it was NFL coaches vs. NFL coaches.

LSU QB Joe Burrow, winner of the 2019 Heisman Trophy by the largest margin in the 80+ year history of the award, thrived in Brady’s system throwing 60 touchdown passes in LSU’s 15 games. He is very likely to be the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft in April. (If so, Burrow will go from the Bayou Bengals to the Cincinnati Bengals.) Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence is the current odds-on favorite to be the #1 overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft. I guess that’s a football constant; having a great QB is very important. Vince Lombardi used to “complain” that the QB was too important in a team game like football.

I will opine again that I think the College Football Playoff needs to expand to eight teams, the winner of each of the Power Five conferences and three at-large teams. Still, the current system is much better, in my opinion, than either the BCS (which, to me, stood for Bullsh*t Concoction System) or the old way of subjective “coronation” of a champion.

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Freedom of speech doesn’t mean anyone else has to listen and that “freedom” doesn’t relieve anyone of the obligation to speak with command of the facts. More people need to adhere to the famous dictum, “Better to remain silent and be thought the fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” An aside: while that remark has been attributed to everyone from Abraham Lincoln to Mark Twain, its origin is actually unclear.

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See the source image

From Car Gurus a picture, of course, of a 1967 Sunbeam Tiger. At the recently concluded Mecum auction in Kissimmee, Florida five of these were among the 3,500-ish lots offered for sale. Only one sold, however, hammering for $75,000 ($82,500 all in).

As most auto enthusiasts know the Sunbeam Tiger is often called “The Poor Man’s Cobra.” It is, indeed, a similar concept to the Shelby Cobra, a small, two-seat roadster of British origin powered by an American V-8. As regular readers of Disaffected Musings know I am enamored of two-seat roadsters with small-displacement V-8 engines like the Tiger and the 289 Cobra.

A little more than 7,000 Tigers were produced by the Rootes Group from 1964 to 1967. Initially, the cars were powered by a Ford 260 cubic-inch V-8, but as Ford increased the displacement of that engine to 289 cubic inches Tigers were given that engine. Production of the Tiger ended when Chrysler Corporation acquired Rootes, didn’t want to use an engine built by another company and didn’t have a suitable small-block V-8 of its own.

Despite current trends in the American automobile market, I still hope for a revival of cars like this especially given all of the empty-nester and single-person households in the US. That hope is probably in vain, but what is life without hope?

#LSU

#SunbeamTiger

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Tiger Tuesday

I don’t follow golf. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t note Tiger Woods’ Masters win this past weekend. For what it’s worth, in my opinion his winning a major tournament after such a long “drought” and given his long period of trials and tribulations, much of which was self-inflicted, is amazing and may be prima facie evidence that he is the greatest golfer of all time.

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Another Tiger:

See the source image

From silodrome.com a picture of a Sunbeam Tiger. I have a thing for roadsters with small-displacement V-8s. OK, I have a thing for a lot of “strange” things; I mean, if the shoe fits…

The Tiger has been called the Poor Man’s Cobra because it is a car of similar concept, but not pitched at the same level. Carroll Shelby played a role in designing the Tiger although not, perhaps, to the extent of his role in designing the Cobra.

The Tiger was a higher performance version of the British Sunbeam Alpine and was produced from 1964 to 1967. The builder was the British company Rootes. The first version, the Mark I, was the majority of Tiger production and came from the factory with the Ford 260 cubic-inch V-8 rated at 164 HP/258 LB-FT of torque. If that doesn’t sound like a lot of output remember that this car had a tiny 86-inch wheelbase and weighed about 2,600 pounds. It was also possible to buy a higher-output engine which would have been installed by the dealer.

In its first year of production virtually all Tigers were exported to North America. In an effort to appeal to American buyers the car was fitted with “Powered by Ford 260” badges on each front fender beneath the Tiger logo.

The Mark II was powered by the famous Ford 289 cubic-inch V-8. I have seen the output of the engine used in the Tiger listed at 200 HP/282 LB-FT. I thought the 289 had 195 HP with a two-barrel carburetor and 210 HP with a four-barrel. The discrepancy is not really a big deal. Maybe Professor Kraman can help us out here.

Chrysler purchased Rootes in 1967, didn’t want to use a Ford engine in its products and didn’t have a suitably sized V-8 of its own. That was the end of the Tiger after about 7,000 were produced.

Anyone reading have any familiarity with these cars? I would very much like to read about your experiences.

#TigerWoods

#SunbeamTiger

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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John “The Professor” Kraman (@CarKraman) was kind enough to reply to my questions to him on Twitter:

“Have always said 164hp as produced but many were modified at the dealer for more power.”

“200hp was the 289 rating I have always stated and there is no power rating that I am aware of for 4bbl modified Tigers.”