These Are The Best Stories From Last Week That Weren't About Cars

A Concorde turbojet engine that spent years listed on eBay finally sold over the weekend to one lucky buyer, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be making supersonic booms of their own anytime soon. - Ryan Erik King Read More

During World War II there were all sorts of technological innovations applied to a new kind of warfare, one that focused on destruction from the seas and skies. One of my favorite YouTube creators, a Scot named Calum, has covered the subject of one such fascinating failed innovation — the rescue bouy — at length, but now for the first time he gets to actually step inside the lone surviving example. Through the magic of the internet, we get to come along. - Erin Marquis Read More

Imagine treating your family to a Christmas cruise to somewhere warm and sunny to destress and relax this holiday season and maybe even get a tan your coworkers will envy come Jan 2. Instead, Mother Nature and the cruise line conspire to send you, not to the beautiful Caribbean, but to sunny Boston, Massachusetts and Newfoundland, Canada, in the middle of December. - Erin Marquis Read More

When you hear the familiar potato-potato exhaust report of a high-performance American V-twin popping toward you on the street, you expect to see an old Harley with a millionaire dentist in blue collar cosplay. The gap between your expectations and the reality of this Russian hot rodder storming the streets in a self-propelled vintage Ural sidecar could not be farther apart. This machine — dubbed the “Siderod” — was built by Mad Badger Garage, and it somehow took more than two years to show up in my social media feeds. - Bradley Brownell Read More

A massive storm wreaked havoc on passenger air services in Buenos Aires, Argentina yesterday. Wind gusts over 60 miles per hour threw planes around the tarmac and rattled terminals apart. Footage has even emerged on social media of an Aerolíneas Argentinas Boeing 737-800 being pushed into a set of boarding stairs by the wind. Argentina’s flag carrier reported that the storm took 16 planes out of service, according to Aviacionline. - Ryan Erik King Read More

A couple of folks learned the hard way what a simultaneous ice bath and massive insurance claim feel like after their plane landed on a seemingly frozen lake and broke through the ice. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

If there are any aliens out there, we’ve just introduced them to one of humanity’s finest inventions: the cat video. As part of its deep-space laser experiment, NASA just streamed a 15-second clip of a cat named Taters to earth. Its origin was a spacecraft called Psyche about 19 million miles away. Not too bad, right? - Elizabeth Blackstock Read More

Southwest Airlines has been hit with a record-setting $140 million fine for pretty much shitting its pants during the 2022 holiday travel season. The civil penalty leveraged against Southwest is 30 times larger than any Department of Transportation airline fine in history, according to a statement from the DOT. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

Remember that era where tons of companies tried to convince us that rentable electric scooters were the future of transportation? The two-wheeled menaces started popping up on city streets like a micromobility plague, becoming the favored mode of travel for drunk folks in cities. But that dream has died. Bird Global, one of the most recognizable names in the scooter game, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Wired is going to take you through the whole story. - Elizabeth Blackstock Read More

One Chinese man has been charged with three counts of theft after Singapore officials uncovered that he stole $23,000 in cash from the luggage of three passengers on their Scoot flight to Singapore, Channel News Asia reports. Hong Kong officials have previously warned of a spike in thefts on flights in the region, and this is yet another example. - Elizabeth Blackstock Read More