Latest news with #Ladas
Sydney Morning Herald
02-08-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
My beat-up camera can never be replaced by a phone
If my camera could speak, she'd have stories to tell. The places she's been, the things she's seen, the punishments she's endured as my trusty companion. Big-boned and positively geriatric at the age of 15, she bears the scars of misadventures aplenty, scratches and dents and faded markings where my trigger-happy fingers have erased her dial mode symbols. This girl has fluttered her shutter-eyelashes at world wonders, captured a lifetime's worth of exploits through her goggle-eyed lens. Shrimp-pink flamingos reflected off the Atacama Desert's improbably blue lakes. Blink. Ten million fruit bats erasing twilight in remote north-western Zambia. Blink, blink, blink. The world's original bungee jumpers climbing a towering platform, tying vines around their ankles and springing earthwards on Vanuatu's remote Pentecost Island. Ah, she nearly missed them. Clad in some sort of polycarbonate material and sealed against inclement weather, my Canon tolerates extreme temperatures. As Siberia's minus 37-degree cold (windchill not included) crushed my bones, she snapped snappily, somehow intuiting the will of my numbed fingers. Long after my iPhone battery had died of hypothermia, she continued to record in high definition the hoons doing burnouts in their Ladas on frozen Lake Baikal, along with my daughter's snow-burned cheeks and frosted eyelashes. Though she barely breaks a sweat in furnace-like conditions, humidity is a proven nemesis. Cold-blooded though she is, her singular eye couldn't outstare the equatorial steam as we tracked western lowland gorillas in the Congo Basin. As sweat bees lapped the perspiration from my face, a cataract bloomed across her lens, rendering snaps of this otherworld in rheumy streaks of green. Those photos remind me of the wispy light she captured the night she saved me from certain injury. Travelling in a monster-sized swamp buggy in the Russian Arctic after midnight, we spied the aurora borealis. Our driver stopped, we clambered out. In the darkness, I lost my footing on the swinging footstep and tumbled onto the road almost two metres yonder. Mercifully I didn't lose hold of my camera: she absorbed the impact, safeguarding me from a snapped wrist. Dusting off her buckled lens, I flipped her switch and lifted her purring body to my cheek. Blink, blink, she fluttered, showing me the dancing skies through her undaunted eye. Loading My camera has been good to me, but I haven't always treated her right. I once knocked her off a bench while cruising on Uganda's Lake Mburo. So intently was I staring at the bubbles streaming behind us – a sure sign of a submerged hippo – I didn't hear her fall. Small mercies: she landed inside the tinny. I dusted her off, lifted her viewfinder to my eye, and attempted to extend her lens. It wouldn't budge. The zoom mechanism had seized – just as the hippo emerged at a distance, head thrown back, jaws yawning, water drops spattering his body in a rainbow shimmer. Snap, crackle, fizz. Back home in Sydney, I deliver my battered charge to the camera doctor, who is kind enough not to remind me of all the other times he's nursed her back to health. The close call brought back memories of the old girl's predecessors. The analogue camera my parents gave me when I was a journalism student, which was later stolen during a house robbery. Its replacement, which I gifted to my vintage-loving daughter for her 21st birthday. And the replacement's successor, my first digital camera, which I accidentally drowned in the Amazon. Not in the river, mind, but in the dry sack in which I'd thoughtlessly placed a loose-lidded water bottle before heading off into the world's biggest rainforest on a photographer's dream adventure.
The Age
02-08-2025
- The Age
My beat-up camera can never be replaced by a phone
If my camera could speak, she'd have stories to tell. The places she's been, the things she's seen, the punishments she's endured as my trusty companion. Big-boned and positively geriatric at the age of 15, she bears the scars of misadventures aplenty, scratches and dents and faded markings where my trigger-happy fingers have erased her dial mode symbols. This girl has fluttered her shutter-eyelashes at world wonders, captured a lifetime's worth of exploits through her goggle-eyed lens. Shrimp-pink flamingos reflected off the Atacama Desert's improbably blue lakes. Blink. Ten million fruit bats erasing twilight in remote north-western Zambia. Blink, blink, blink. The world's original bungee jumpers climbing a towering platform, tying vines around their ankles and springing earthwards on Vanuatu's remote Pentecost Island. Ah, she nearly missed them. Clad in some sort of polycarbonate material and sealed against inclement weather, my Canon tolerates extreme temperatures. As Siberia's minus 37-degree cold (windchill not included) crushed my bones, she snapped snappily, somehow intuiting the will of my numbed fingers. Long after my iPhone battery had died of hypothermia, she continued to record in high definition the hoons doing burnouts in their Ladas on frozen Lake Baikal, along with my daughter's snow-burned cheeks and frosted eyelashes. Though she barely breaks a sweat in furnace-like conditions, humidity is a proven nemesis. Cold-blooded though she is, her singular eye couldn't outstare the equatorial steam as we tracked western lowland gorillas in the Congo Basin. As sweat bees lapped the perspiration from my face, a cataract bloomed across her lens, rendering snaps of this otherworld in rheumy streaks of green. Those photos remind me of the wispy light she captured the night she saved me from certain injury. Travelling in a monster-sized swamp buggy in the Russian Arctic after midnight, we spied the aurora borealis. Our driver stopped, we clambered out. In the darkness, I lost my footing on the swinging footstep and tumbled onto the road almost two metres yonder. Mercifully I didn't lose hold of my camera: she absorbed the impact, safeguarding me from a snapped wrist. Dusting off her buckled lens, I flipped her switch and lifted her purring body to my cheek. Blink, blink, she fluttered, showing me the dancing skies through her undaunted eye. Loading My camera has been good to me, but I haven't always treated her right. I once knocked her off a bench while cruising on Uganda's Lake Mburo. So intently was I staring at the bubbles streaming behind us – a sure sign of a submerged hippo – I didn't hear her fall. Small mercies: she landed inside the tinny. I dusted her off, lifted her viewfinder to my eye, and attempted to extend her lens. It wouldn't budge. The zoom mechanism had seized – just as the hippo emerged at a distance, head thrown back, jaws yawning, water drops spattering his body in a rainbow shimmer. Snap, crackle, fizz. Back home in Sydney, I deliver my battered charge to the camera doctor, who is kind enough not to remind me of all the other times he's nursed her back to health. The close call brought back memories of the old girl's predecessors. The analogue camera my parents gave me when I was a journalism student, which was later stolen during a house robbery. Its replacement, which I gifted to my vintage-loving daughter for her 21st birthday. And the replacement's successor, my first digital camera, which I accidentally drowned in the Amazon. Not in the river, mind, but in the dry sack in which I'd thoughtlessly placed a loose-lidded water bottle before heading off into the world's biggest rainforest on a photographer's dream adventure.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cooling rental market provides window of opportunity for Calgary renters to find deals
Gone are the days of soaring rents, lineups for viewings and upfront rental application fees in Calgary — at least for now. Those keeping a close eye on the rental market say this is a good time for Calgary renters to look for deals as move-in incentives return in full swing. In May, Calgary once again posted the steepest year-over-year decrease for asking rents among major markets, down 7.9 per cent to an average of $1,928 for an apartment, according to the latest report by rental listing company It's the 10th month in a row that asking rents in Calgary have fallen. "It's actually below Montreal now, it's below London, it's below Hamilton and Kingston. So it's kind of really falling on our rankings, which I guess is a good thing for Calgary renters," said Giacomo Ladas, associate director of communications with He said Calgary is now catching up with trends in Toronto and Vancouver, where rental prices have been falling for 16 and 18 months respectively. It's a big change from what Calgary renters have seen in recent years. "There was one point early last year where we were seeing 15 to 20 per cent increases year over year," said Ladas. Statistics Canada is reporting similar numbers. It recently launched a new program with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to publish information on asking rents for the first time. The first report said average asking rents — that's the initial price that landlords request for a unit — fell roughly $170 between the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025. Jean-Philippe Deschamps-Laporte with Statistics Canada said it's important to publish this information because it provides a much more current look at the market compared to the annual rental market survey CMHC publishes. "This is relevant and timely information to know. Like, if you're expecting a child, how much does it cost to add a bedroom? Or if you wish to move to Red Deer, [what] does that look like?" Both Ladas and Deschamps-Laporte attributed the drop in rent to a surge of new supply, mixed with a decrease in demand as international migration slows and Canadians choose to move to smaller centres instead. With the market shifting, moving incentives have returned in Calgary. A quick search of websites like and RentFaster show various types of incentives offered by landlords — including two months of free rent, six months of free storage, a $1,000 discount on security deposits and $500 signing bonuses. Ladas said this is a "nice little pocket" for renters to take advantage of the incentives while they last, but it's not yet time to breathe a huge sigh of relief. He said he isn't sure how long incentives will be around, but he suspects many new buildings coming online were greenlighted when interest rates plummeted. Ladas said the amount of new supply could slow over the next couple of years, now that interest rates have risen. Additionally, a recent CMHC report said Calgary needs to build nearly 9,000 more units a year — on top of the record amounts of housing already being built — to restore pre-pandemic affordability levels. He added Calgary's rental market is still particularly difficult for low-income renters as Calgarians cling onto their cheaper rentals due to ongoing economic uncertainty. "Low-income renters are the ones who are kind of suffering the most because they're in competition for a very small pool of available rental units and they're in competition with people who aren't necessarily low-income," said Ladas. Statistics Canada's new program also includes reporting of prices of single rooms for the first time, aimed to provide fresh information to low-income renters, seniors and students. The average asking rent for a single room in Calgary in the first quarter of 2025 was $740. That marks a $40 decrease from the same period in 2024, but it's significantly higher than the $550 figure recorded in 2020, according to Deschamps-Laporte. "That's a significant increase, especially if you're on a fixed income," said Deschamps-Laporte.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Lada Powered By 50 Cordless Drills Is The Only EV Swap That Matters
Taking an old car and making it run on electricity is so hot right now, with startups the world over popping up with the aim of electrifying everything from old Jaguar E-Types to lovely little Miatas. Now, a rusting Lada has been given the EV upgrade, but instead of cribbing its power from a Tesla or Cascadia Motion, it comes from an unlikely source: cordless drills. Specifically, the battery-powered Lada is motivated by hashing together 50 cordless drills by YouTube channel Garage 54. If that name sounds familiar, that's because we've previously covered all their crazy antics involving ATVs, exploding tires and Ladas. Lots of Ladas. For this latest project, the bonkers Russian wrenchers worked to build a kind of electric engine out of cordless drills. The 50 battery-powered drills were mounted around a common crankshaft, which linked all fifty motors together via a complex array of belts and pulleys. It's beautiful in its complexity. It's a little like that electric-swapped Porsche that raced at Pikes Peak that one time, but more Russian. When the drill-powered motor was first revealed, we estimated that it could produce as much as 25 hp and '400-ish lb-ft of torque,' which our Brad boldly claimed 'should be more than enough to move a little Lada around.' It's almost like the folks at Garage 54 read his /mind/ post, as that's exactly what they set about doing next: powering a Lada. To do this, the team took a Lada that had already been lengthened to make space for a chainsaw-powered V16, stripped away all those nasty gas motors and dropped in the gargantuan electric motor. It's quite the site to behold, with the bright orange arms of half the drills sticking up out of that enormous hood. You'd certainly do a double take if Garage 54 rolled past you in this on the highway. When it comes to driving the battery-powered Lada, the motor is connected up to the car's gearbox and there's a rudimentary switch inside to control the power. On the first test, the car (amazingly) moves away from the stand under its own steam with the roar of 50 power drills soundtracking its first steps. The rest of the tests that the garage 54 crew put the car through are, as you'd expect, a bit ridiculous and a lot of fun to watch. There's a bit of smoke and a few minor disasters, but the drill-powered car really does work. If you want to see how well it works for yourself, hit play on the video above. Once you've done that, head here to see Garage 54 attempt to break the sound barrier with a tire or here to see what kind of abominable snowmobile the channel created out of old ATVs. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
