bookofjoe

'But will that glass breaker work on the newer laminated windows?' — Tam Donovan

This past Thursday I featured the ExiTool, purported to help you escape from your car in the event you need to make an emergency underwater exit.

My longtime San Francisco Bay Area Crack Research Team©®™ member Tam Donovan weighed in this morning: her comment appears in the headline up top. 

I asked ChatGPT-4o* to join the discussion; below, its reply.

Up top, a YouTube video showing that the usual emergency car exit tools which work fine on tempered glass do not work on laminated glass.

Quora weighed in thusly:

My Crack Research Team©®™ will continue to look into this issue**: stay tuned.

In the meantime, do the counterintuitive thing if your car plunges into water: ROLL DOWN THE WINDOWS ASAP. 

Once a car is submerged, not only will electrics stop working but also the outside pressure of water on windows will make it impossible to lower them manually.

*The best $59.99 (for a one-year all-access subscription) I've spent in as long as I can remember.

**Notwithstanding clifyt's dismissive comment yesterday that began "Today in WHAT ARE OLD PEOPLE CONCERNED ABOUT...."

Europe's Oldest Shoes

[Prehistoric sandals, recovered from a bat cave in southern Spain, pictured on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid.]

From the BBC:

Europe's Oldest Shoe Found in Spanish Bat Cave

Scientists say they have identified Europe's oldest shoes, sandals woven from grass thought to be around 6,000 years old

They were among a haul of ancient objects discovered in a bat cave in Spain plundered by miners in the 19th Century, but were analysed in a new study.

Low humidity and cool winds in the cave kept them unusually well-preserved.

Researchers also analysed baskets and a set of tools.

The objects "are the oldest and best preserved set of plant fibre materials in southern Europe so far known," the study's co-author María Herrero Otal said.

"The technological diversity and the treatment of raw materials documented highlights the skill of prehistoric communities," she added.

New dating techniques used showed that the collection of 76 objects found in the cave was about 2,000 years older than was previously thought.

Some objects in the set date back 9,000 years.

The sandals that were analysed used different types of grass in their structure, researchers said, but also included other materials such as leather and lime.

They date to the Neolithic period, making them older than the 5,500-year-old leather shoes discovered in a cave in Armenia back in 2008.

The cave the 6,000-year-old sandals were found in was the Cueva de los Murciélagos, or the Cave of the Bats, in Andalusia, south-west Spain.

According to the researchers of this study, the cave was first accessed in 1831 by a landowner who collected bat guano, or droppings, used to make fertilizer.

Less than two decades later, it was used by miners who, while mining the cave, discovered a gallery that held partially mummified corpses, baskets, wooden tools, and among others — wild boar teeth and a unique gold diadem.

Cartier Juste un Clou*: The In-Match Bracelet of Choice of Top WTA Tour Players

After just the first five days of the U.S. Open I've already spotted it on Paula Badosa and Yulia Putintseva; in the past it was a staple of Genie Bouchard, among others.

$3,600-$85,500.

More?

From websites:

"Juste un Clou" is a French phrase that translates to "just a nail." It refers to a Cartier jewelry collection that includes a nail-shaped bracelet, rings, brooches, necklaces, and earrings. The collection was designed by Aldo Cipullo and debuted in 1971. The bracelet was originally called the "Nail bracelet," but was renamed "Juste un Clou" in the 2000s.

The collection is known for its bold, sleek, and minimalist design; avant-garde style; embracing the idea of finding beauty in everyday objects; challenging conventional norms of jewelry making.

The collection is available in yellow gold, rose gold, and white gold, and in paved and non-paved designs. The bracelet is durable enough to wear every day, including in the shower.