Steve DaSilva

For months now, orcas have been overturning ships around Europe. They’ve been targeting luxury yachts, capsizing them in what can only be seen as an act of radical class warfare. This past Halloween, the killer whales launched their latest attack: Sinking a tourist yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar. The Grazie Mamma II, a Polish yacht, was attacked by orcas in the early afternoon of Halloween according to the Mirror. The paper called it a “horror incident,” firmly planting the Mirror on the est…

The United Auto Workers strike has — tentatively — ended. The workers, though, still face uncertainty in the face of a shifting automotive market. As manufacturers transition to electric vehicles, those workers need to know they won’t be left out in the cold, and those assurances are still forthcoming. This was one of the major concerns of the recent strike, as automakers spun up new factories to manufacture EVs and batteries without including the UAW. New agreements from the strike have starte…

Folks, it’s too warm out. Friday marks the first day of Halloweekend and, for chrissakes, here it is in the 70s in New York. I remember snow on Halloween as a kid, being forced to wear a winter coat over my costume and just hating it because Darth Vader never wore a puffy winter coat. Anyway, those moments are lost like tears in rain. Fall just keeps getting hotter, and it’s totally fine and not concerning at all. Don’t worry about it. Just enjoy the warm weather, and grab yourself a convertib…

Tesla held its third-quarter earnings call last Wednesday, where management met with investors to talk through the past few months and reevaluate for the road ahead. In that call, CEO Elon Musk laid down some tough numbers: Sales are down, earnings are down, and costs have risen. This isn’t unusual, all companies hit rough spots from time to time. Meetings like this often involve a CEO placating investors, telling them all the plans for the future, ways the company will bounce back. Musk, it s…

Happy Friday, everybody. Doesn’t it feel like this week flew by? I swear it was Monday just two, maybe three days ago. Today is Wednesday, I’m deciding. I’m sorry to everyone who had plans coming up for the weekend. Wouldn’t it be nice if your car could fly just as quickly? If you had something quick, nimble, and able to blow past traffic like days of this past week. Or, alternatively, if your car could just drive over traffic, and ensure the laws of time — and all other laws, really — no long…

A few weeks ago, I took a motorcycle ride with a friend up Massachusetts’ Trans-Mass Trail. We had a pre-planned route, GPS tracks laid out ahead of time by riders far older and wiser than we, downloaded to our phones to guide us. Two riders meant redundancy, two phones meant a better chance of coverage — what could go wrong? Just in case, however, I reached out to Garmin about testing the new Zumo XT2 GPS unit on the trail. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have a backup that didn’t rely on cell…

I’m no longer a morning drive time radio DJ, but sometimes you just need to flex those saying-a-phrase-no-human-being-would-ever-say muscles. This is one of those times. Welcome back to another Friday here at Jello Picnic HQ, where the weather is getting colder but the cars stay hot. Sorry, couldn’t resist. Campy phrasing or no, though, this week’s online sales roundup is in fact hot — just look at that Porsche above. Are you gonna tell me that’s not hot? That it isn’t one of the internet’s Dop…

Folks, we’re rapidly approaching winter, and with that comes winter weather — snow, ice, low visibility, all those factors that make driving in December so fun. But how bad can things really get, and is winter really the worst of it? Earlier this week, I asked you for the worst conditions you’ve ever driven through, and you gave some truly good stories in response. Here are some of the best. Black Ice I’m going to add a Southern Special. Black Ice. A road looks like an open English Muffin.…

Driverless taxis from Cruise have been prowling the streets of San Francisco for years, with what we might call mixed results. They’re known for stopping in traffic and interrupting commutes, but rarely do things get worse than that. Last night, a car in San Francisco hit a woman as she crossed the street. An adjacent Cruise robotaxi then parked on the woman’s leg, trapping her in place until emergency crews could forcibly remove the car. The San Francisco Chronicle spoke with eyewitnesses and…

You remember the Alfa Nero, right? The superyacht abandoned by a Russian oligarch, seized by Antigua, and later sold to a former Google CEO for four percent of the island nation’s GDP? Well, unfortunately for Antigua, that sale fell through earlier this month — leaving the country on the hook once again for thousands of dollars a month in maintenance. The Alfa Nero may not be allowed to leave port, but that doesn’t mean the ship is sitting vacant in its slip. The boat needs to be constantly ai…