The Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) is investigating the possibility of water in shadowed craters near the Moon's poles, and we don't mean "looking carefully with telescopes" investigating - we mean "Dirty Harry" investigating, hitting things and shooting at them until you get some answers. The LCROSS craft will drop a fully fueled Centaur rocket booster - yes, the type that you normally use just to get into space - to detonate a fairly impressive amount of the Moon.
This will create a huge plume of debris because the moon's gravity is lighter than Earth's, and because you just exploded two thousand kilograms of rocket juice. For a really close look LCROSS will fly right through the debris - possibly while rock music plays in the background - and then, for an even closer look, LCROSS itself will ram the moon and explode. This will be observed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and while there aren't yet any plans to make the LRO explode, at this level of Insanely Awesome Science we can't rule anything out.
Figures Porsche would be the one to come up with this:
It's a 911 engine running on what amounts to a force-simulating dynamometer. While the movements of the actual car running around Nordschleife aren't quite so extreme, the dyno simulates the G forces involved, presumably in an effort to engineer out oil starvation, among other issues.
Now that's just damn cool, and how technology should be used in the context of car design. posted by Mr. Lion
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Barclays Plc’s Abu Dhabi investors made a profit of 1.46 billion pounds ($2.4 billion) as they sold a stake in the lender seven months after helping Britain’s third-biggest bank avoid a government bailout.
PCP Gulf Invest 1 Ltd., owned by Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Co., sold more than 1.3 billion Barclays shares for 265 pence each, raising about 3.46 billion pounds, according to Credit Suisse Group AG, which managed the sale. The price was 16 percent less than yesterday’s close.
Abu Dhabi made a 73 percent profit after backing Barclays Chief Executive Officer John Varley, who tapped sovereign wealth funds in the Mideast last October rather than accept state funding. Barclays has risen sixfold since January as the bank reported a 2008 profit, shunned the U.K.’s asset insurance program and agreed to sell assets to bolster its capital.
Hugh Hewitt has a good column up on the GM bankruptcy, and the decade-long mangling of the US auto industry that's sure to follow. He's also got some sound advice:
I won't buy a socialist car, which means I won't be buying a GM or Chrysler car for as long as the U.S. government owns huge blocks of the companies.
Today's bankruptcy filing by GM will see the end of a once-great car company and the birth of a federal government-union partnership dressed up as a business. It won't work, even with the $50 billion federal tax dollars plowed into the new entity past and present, and not even with the UAW's "concessions."
Governments can do very few things well and almost nothing efficiently.
Mark my words, by the time 2019 rolls around, or even 2014 for that matter, all Government Motors will have accomplished is blowing galactic craploads of taxpayer dollars on utopian idiocy nobody wants to buy.
So, the solution is simple: Don't buy a damn thing they make, let them sink, and hope that somehow, a few new independent car builders will spring up and somehow find a way of navigating the EPA/DOT/IDIOT labyrinth of requirements necessary to build a new, interesting car.
If tiny English companies with employees that number in the hundreds can do it, I don't see why we can't. Even if ultimately the only place left to sell the things is Europe.
Oh, and now would probably be a really good time to pick up some Ford stock. posted by Mr. Lion
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| Friday, May 22 2009 |
Dear Advertisers,
While I realize that web advertising has a pretty tough job to do, that being attract the attention of your average moron with an attention span on par with the half-life of Ununquadium, there are a few increasing web ad trends which I would like to take issue with.
First, hover-over DIV ads. The web 2.0 version of popups. While not quite as annoying as the now thankfully all but extinct pop-under ad (I'm looking in your direction, NetFlix), they are still extraordinarily annoying. Especially, as is oft the case, when made visible upon loading a given page. I will sort of abide the newish trend of expanding in-line graphical ads, though anything that automatically covers the content I actually care about will be automatically dismissed, as it should be by anyone with a functioning neuron.
Second, moving hover-over DIV ads. These make me want to hunt down their creator, burn is house down, and feed him his pets and/or children before they completely turn to ash. Especially when the bloody "close" button is smaller than your average environmentalist's twig and berries. I will not only completely disregard these ads, but take note of the content they purport, and do my very best to turn however many people as is humanly possible off of said product.
A page from the book of Google would be well read in this case, dear advertisers, as while they to tend to get an awful lot wrong editorially, one thing they absolutely get right is advertising. Small, minimalist, in-line text or graphical ads that generally produce very high quality click through traffic. It's all anyone should need to hock their wares, people. posted by Mr. Lion
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| Thursday, May 21 2009 |
A nation of pansies. (Or at least a few states)
Just as Kim du Toit took no end of heat for his essay, The Pussification Of The Western Male, it appears this guy is being met with a nearly as shrill reaction to his suggestion that, gasp, some people like to drive fast, and occasionally do it on public roads.
To cherry-pick some of the more neurotic comments:
Bizarre and wonderful and strangely 18th century. Yes, bring on part 2 of what is truly a DRIVING DEATH WATCH.
Hey, about this? I drive a 35 mile comute each way to and from work. On a 3 lane interstate. 70 MPH posted. I go 65 MPH. And guess what? I get there only a few minutes later, I’m more relaxed and refreshed, and I can even drink a coffee and listen to the radio while I do it and still be fully aware of what going on around me. I just let everyone pass me as I go down the right lane and save gas (even though my car is a 4 banger with a stick, 5 MPH makes a real difference). I would like to see one of us write an article about going slower.
Great article. How about following it up with a “how to” on Russian roulette?
Now, I'll grant you, I have nothing in common with people who buy minivans, economy cars, have kids, or are concerned about how "relaxing" their commute to work is. Chances are, I'm more likely to scream at said people for being obtuse, ignorant idiots, clogging up the roads that those of us who could be bothered to learn how to drive might like to enjoy on occasion.
However, the concept that one could be so entirely devoid of an interest in driving a motor vehicle in any way that could reasonably defined as "spirited" is completely alien to me.
Now, I realize, as most men age (and sorry, ladies, but I'm focusing on the guys here because enthusiast female drivers are about as common as your average unicorn with a horn made of black pearl) they have a tendency to do the whole procreation thing, the process of which generally includes handing over the keys to the sports car at the used family hauler dealer, along with one's man card and testicles. Won't be needing those anymore, after all. However, those same men end up putting in the extra hours and picking up a BMW M5 or Merc AMG-something or what have you, stow it away in the garage, and every so often take it for a spin as a gentle consolation that, however many natural impulses they may be required to turn off in the name of parenthood, by God, they can still find a stretch of open road from time to time and relive the thrill of their 20's.
There is, at the core of it all, still a man, and those men like going fast. Same ingrained genetic code that provided for a scenario other than a bunch of NASA white coats standing around in a parking lot somewhere, scratching their heads because they couldn't find anyone willing to climb into the tip of their 3,000 ton flying bomb brimming with explody-things just looking for a situation in which to do what most explody-things are oft to.
But, no. They had guys lined up around the block, because of that ingrained genetic code to go forth and explore, and preferably do it with something really fast and loud.
So imagine my horror that a subset of humanity has become so brady-bunched and pussy-whipped in their latte-sipping, econobox-driving middle management existence, that they'd bleat, moan and generally hand-wring their way into a hissy fit over the concept of someone who still had a functioning set of wedding vegetables doing triple digits in a sports car on a stretch of lightly traffic'd interestate.
As it happens, I was stuck behind one of these.. creatures.. earlier today. While blowing the carbon (heh) out of a Lotus Elise, I found myself on a twisty mountain road with a salt-and-pepper haired fellow in a new Mercedes SL63 AMG. Top down, enjoying the art of driving. While there's only so much you can do in tight twisties with a two-ton-and-then-some luxo-boat, having 525 horsepower, in a word, helps. It was an interesting blast up said mountain road, as while the Merc was entirely outclassed in the corners by the plucky Lotus, and, well, if I'm honest also totally outclassed in the straight bits as said Lotus is turbocharged, it was still a great drive, and a random camaraderie shared by most all men on an open road. Doesn't matter if you're driving a heavy luxo-rocket or a modest hot hatchback that you slipped under the wife radar as being somehow "practical". We're all on the same team, here. (And if you're wondering how I knew what kind of Merc it was, I'll get to that.)
Until, of course, beginning our decent down said twisty mountain road, we came across one of them. Your bona-fide urban hipster, piloting a generic smugmobile that likely took half an hour to make it up said road, who had stopped in the road, purely to ruin our fun on the way down. Which, he did, plodding along at 20 miles per hour, eyes glued to the rear-view for some indication of the fun he was preventing, or spotted owls being saved, or who knows what. At least, until, we both rocket-shipped past the little smugbox at light speed at the first passing opportunity, which was, regrettably, at the bottom of said twisties.
And that, I'm quite sure, is the same kind of hand-wringing, eco-tard psuedo-male who lurks around gearhead-centric sites just waiting for an opportunity to bleat about the horror and pollution and risk of it all.
It's the same kind of moron that dials 911 faster than can be when a bunch of sports cars blast past him on the highway doing twice his speed, regardless of the lack of traffic and perfectly acceptable risks involved. It's the same moron who opens his door, or squeezes his econo-box or SUV-boat closer to a given object when he sees a motorcyclist approaching. It's not about risk, it's not about the environment, nor any other of the pseudo-issues du jour. It's about the simple fact that we are having fun and they are not.
I don't know what kind of smugmobile it was, for the same reason I don't know what kind of minivan or horrible "crossover" car someone drives. It's not important for me to know, because it was not designed for any purpose other than to meet a generic set of focus group criteria and be brought to market under a certain price point. That is the problem, both in the mindset of people who buy such crap, and the now bankrupt companies that built the majority of them. And, if current goings-on are any indication, it's only going to be the same tried and false trend that graced us with the fleet of mediocrity known as cars in the 70's.
Heaven forbid these idiots go and try something of the like, be it a go kart track, or what have you. No, that just wouldn't fit into their tidy little preconceived world, you see. They're making a difference, you see, even with no direct reinforcement or visible results, and absolutely no experience for or against to the contrary, they just know better. So, they'll call the cops when they see you speed, block the lane when it's clear you're trying to get by, and generally exercise whatever pathetic power they presume to control at any given time to ruin someone else's fun.
Well, I've got news for them, and all their environmentalist, cars-and-speed-are-bad moronic ilk: We're not the problem, you are the problem, and if not for us climbing into the rockets, and developing the technology to go faster and be louder, you wouldn't have a super-efficient four banger in your smugmobile, because that efficiency was designed, primarily, to go faster, then adapted to make money appeasing idiots like you. Money, that if there's any justice in the world, was used by Honda or Toyota or whoever to build a better Formula One engine.
What does this all have to do with going fast? Well, at the heart of the issue is the personality of the driver, the sort of guy who has bothered to make sure his car is well prepared, and who knows where his skill ends and the skidmarks begin. He also knows that speed limits are a rough guideline in place to make the roads a reasonably safe place to be for the other idiots who couldn't be bothered to learn how to drive beyond putting it in "D" and stepping on the "go" pedal, and who don't see a huge problem with running around on 10 pounds of air in a tire. Because of that, we deem blasting past those stupid numbers on the side of the highway as an acceptable risk. Acceptable, given the rewards of enjoyment that are a direct result of doing it, either alone or in the company of other like-minded individuals.
That personality, that spirit which will not let itself be completely tamed out of existence, is the secret sauce that made this country what it is. posted by Mr. Lion
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| Wednesday, May 13 2009 |
Dear Sling Media,
It is not, I repeat not necessary for your player app to ask me if I'd like to download a newly released version every 30 minutes. Doing so makes me want to beak things. Like everyone involved who thought that would be a good idea.
