And so this is Christmas… And what have you done? (thanks, Beetles)

Well, looks like we blew 2016. I won’t even get started on the president the Electoral College gave the (for now) United States. One of a couple friends that builds sidecars just had to drop everything and head home to take care of family. Turkey, home of Ford’s world heavy truck program, is so ungovernable that Turkish military officers assigned to our U.S. military are requesting refugee status. That probably explains why Ford’s touching TV ad with the moslem woman farmer driving a big Ford truck to market has disappeared. And speaking of big trucks, a terrorist has again turned a big truck into a weapon of terror, this time in one of Europe’s fabled Christmas Markets.

But the techies ain’t givin’ up… Here in ‘Merica groups of techies are downloading and archiving terabytes of public domain scientific data on climate, lest Trump & Company think they can make climate change go away by deleting the data. And while the Turkish military and/or religious fanatics may shut down Ford in Turkey, the next Ford heavy truck will be built in Brazil too, and no doubt teams of techs on several continents are developing that truck online. Wouldn’t be the first time, Ford’s Escape/C-Max/Kuga was an international design project as is every new vehicle from every major manufacturer.

And our sidecar builder who had to return home to be with his family? Given a bit of computer software, a dozen gear heads spread all over the world could probably together design and build a sidecar without ever physically meeting, regardless of family obligations, blizzards, or outright acts of war… Ain’t tech wonderful!