You are here: Home
› Cars

Cars

Three Best Things 4/26/10 - 5/2/10

Posted by Jason on Sun, 05/02/2010 - 10:22pm

Thing: The Revenge of the Brands: How corporate America turned Naomi Klein’s anti-branding manifesto on its head from Reason. Intended as an anti-marketing call-to-arms, Naomi Klein’s No Logo has actually wound up as the blueprint for modern branding. When corporations are tripping over themselves to seem as uncorporate as possible, what’s left to subvert, anyway? Reason argues that, for Klein, “Writing about branding was only an excuse to talk about politics,” which explains her present lack of satisfaction at seeing corporate America playing by her rules. ELSEWHERE IN BRANDING: Ice Cube on co-opting the Los Angeles Raiders brand by force in the early ’90s.

Thing: Riders on the Storm by the New York Times. David Brooks, fresh off a 15-minute break spent dumping on Sandra Bullock for being the victim of infidelity, gets back to work by linking to some studies that declare internet users to be surprisingly open-minded clickers. “People who spend time on the most liberal sites are more likely to go to foxnews.com than average Internet users,” and vice versa. Sure, most of that cross-traffic can be chalked up to troll exchanges, but it’s reassuring to think more and more people might be finding common ground every day simply by being adventurous surfers. ELSEWHERE IN VIEWPOINTS: Design for the First World, a new blog that flips the “Design will save the world” notion — the idea that well-meaning while perhaps patronizing designers can solve developing-world problems just by being great designers who care really hard. DFTFW is soliciting solutions from developing-nation designers for first-world problems like obesity or having nothing to whine to Twitter about.

THING: Super Mario Bros Crossover via Rock Paper Shotgun. You can play through Super Mario Bros, warps and all, as Mega Man, Link, Metroid person, Castlevania man, or Contra guy. This is all you need to know. ELSEWHERE IN RETRO: The Industrialization of Traffic: Why Bicycles Are Faster Than Cars by No Tech Magazine.

BONUS!

You’ve seen parkour videos before, and some of them were ok, but none of them were as good as this one is:

The Shoddy Aughties: Best of the Decade's Worst Lists

Posted by Jason on Mon, 12/28/2009 - 4:52pm

Heads up, friends: This post is part of ENGINE’s decade-closing blogsplosion. Click here to witness the rest of the damage. The aughties!

It’s time for the exhaustive list of the Worst _____ of the Decade lists.

Y2KWe try to be positive. But come on. When Pew concludes it was the worst decade in 50 years, and Time drops the 10 Worst Things about the Worst Decade Ever, it’s hard to forget this decade kicked off with Y2K — not just a fail fail, but the biggest fail fail ever — and has only gotten more and more bailouty and wardrobe malfunctionous since.

Would love to list nice things; just filling a void here. Kottke’s already got the best lists list covered. It has some worsts too, but isn’t nearly as horrific as what you’re about to endure Also, Fimoculous has the 2009 list of lists up and running — perfect for those getting the shakes at staring down the barrel of all ten years at once.

Our next entry in our series will be as pleasant as can be. But it’s darkest before the dawn. Wade into the shock and awful.

Worst 2000s Lists

Worst Ads, Branding & Marketing


Via 10 Worst Green Brand Names by Fast Company

Worst Books, Magazines, & Newspapers


Via 30 Worst Women’s Magazine Covers by BuzzFeed

Worst in Business


Via 15 Biggest PR Disasters by Business Insider

Worst Cars


Via 10 Worst Cars by Jalopnik

Worst Celebrities


Via 10 Worst WWE Heavyweight Champions by Bleacher Report

Worst Computers & Web Stuff


Allegedly a website, via 10 Ugliest Websites by WXYZ.com

Worst Design


Via 12 Worst Web Design Trends by Web Hosting Help Guy

Worst Fashion


Via 10 Worst Hair Trends by the Frisky

Worst Food & Drink


Featured in 10 Worst Fast Food Meals by Time. Image via flickr

Worst … General


Featured in 11 Worst Ideas by the Washington Post

Worst in Money


Featured in 10 Worst Athletes to Ask for Financial Advice by Real Clear Sports

Worst Movies & Theater


Via 10 Worst Hindi Movies by Greatbong

Worst Music


Via 25 Worst Album Covers (NSFW) by Gunaxin Media [Somehow, the nuclear reactors make less sense than the pigs that are immune to pig flu.]

Worst in Politics


Via 12 Most Shocking Sex Scandals by the Huffington Post

Worst Products


Via 10 Worst Tech Products by CNET

Worst Science & Tech


Featured in 10 Worst Moments in Science by Smithsonian Magazine

Worst in Sports


Via The Decade’s Worst NASCAR Paint Schemes by Fanhouse

Worst TV


Featured in 10 Worst TV Shows by Complex

Worst Videogames


Via 10 Worst Games by GameWad

That’s it! You survived the worst decade since the 1360s.

That wasn’t so bad after all!

Got more? Send them my way.

CLUNK: How One Bad Website Ruined a Perfectly Wonderful Program

Posted by Jason on Tue, 08/25/2009 - 11:57am

It seems the Cash Free Tax Bonanzas For Clunkers Arbitrarily Doomed Property program was a success, if by success we mean lots of people took money that was given to them. The program’s website (Cars.gov), however, doesn’t have a very high MPG rating. So to speak. Masses of dealers are unable to enter their reimbursement claims due to the website’s awfulness. Pressed for comment, The Man said, “Oh boo hoo hoo.”

See: Cash For Clunkers’ Clunky Website

Previously: Bailouts are so Spring ‘09… Web design is where the real money’s at.

PS: Isn’t it a little bit sad that a broken website dominates one of the most competitive keywords?

Need paintless dent repair in Atlanta? Listen, I know this guy.

Posted by Ben on Wed, 01/28/2009 - 7:56pm

So, we recently completed a small site for paintless dent repair expert, Mr. Wayne Hicks. His situation was pretty common. He needed an online presence, but the content wouldn’t be changing regularly. He wanted users to be able to fill out a simple form to request a free estimate. No problem. He also wanted to show up in local business listings on search engines. Again, no problem.

The project went off without a hitch. No problem.

Paintless Dent Repair in Atlanta, GA – paintlessrepair.net

Paintless-Repair-website-by-ENGINE-Industries.jpg

AddToAny

Share/Save