What I hate about NJ drivers, part three

The third thing I hate is the extremely slouched driving pose, such that the driver appears to be almost in the center of the car and his head is nowhere in the vicinity of the seat's headrest.  The body is angled at an almost 45 degree angle.  Over-reliance on the center armrest, maybe? 

In a McClaren F1 this is acceptable -- only because the supercar has a single center seat in the front.  In any other car, this is retarded.   Knock it off.

What I hate about NJ drivers, part two

Another classic NJ move is the ape-like driving position, as if one is trying to stop his slit wrists from bleeding out.  Driving with the hairy popeye forearm at 12:00 and using the wrist contact with the wheel to steer.

I'm looking for a good picture but haven't found one yet.

What I hate about NJ drivers, part one

There are several things you come across in NJ driving that are irritating beyond belief.  They probably happen everywhere, but the population density in NJ is so high that we just seem to have more mooks.

#1 on my list is the art of driving with the parking lights on, and fog lights on.

This drives me crazy.  Batshit insane.

I guess because the swarthy idiots that do it think it's cool.  Cool to drive around with every light on except the ones that will actually provide the most light. 

Parking lights are meant to let someone know your car is there without blinding them with headlights.  Fog lights are meant to cut through low-hanging fog so you can see road markings.

You are not meant to drive with the parking lights (to the extent that some manufacturers don't even allow this combination and the parking lights can only be engaged while the car is parked).  You are not meant to use only the fog lights.  It's stupid.  It's asinine.  KNOCK IT OFF!

I think it's time to retire from Madden

I've been playing Madden NFL, on and off, for as long as I can remember.  The oldest version I can find sttill in my posession is Madden 94 for the Sega Genesis. 

I've always liked to think I was better than average, but my brother always kicked my ass in the game.  Spend a season getting better, play my little bro and get my ass kicked.  Like 100-13 kicked.

With the modern consoles (specifically XBox 360) you can play online.  The same phenomenon happens here -- you run into 13 year olds who have nothing better to do than play Madden all day every day (not to mention cheating and/or hacking their consoles). 

Every August a new version comes out for the new NFL season.  Every August I buy it.  And get my ass kicked.  I never had a winning record or anything close to it.

Last year I had enough, and I determined to work at it hard enough to at least stop getting destroyed.

Today I hit a milestone -- not only did I get myself a winning record, I've slowly gotten myself to 50 games over .500.  I can't compete with the top level "glitchers" who take advantage of flaws in the software, but I can usually fight back enough to aggravate them and at least partially slow down their nonsense. 

I think this means it's time to retire.  At least until Madden 2012. 

XBox Kinect -- Well Done, Microsoft!

Nintendo's success with the Wii console shocked the video game industry.  Nintendo had been relegated to a second rate also-ran by the time the PS3 and XBox 360 came out.  Their new console, the Wii, was considered a hail Mary.

And then a huge success, one that revolutionized the console industry.  Sony and Microsoft soon found themselves scrambling to imitate the Wii's innovative motion controls.  Being a skeptic, I expected Microsoft and Sony to produce derivative "me too" versions of this technology, Microsoft's effort being dubbed the "Kinect".

This weekend I got my first experience with the Kinect at my brother's house.  Microsoft really knocked this one out of the park.

The Kinect doesn't work by tracking controllers in your hand.  Rather, it takes pictures of the play area and picks out the people, in effect turning YOU into the controller, and your on-screen avatar follows your physical movement -- swat your hand, duck, jump, etc -- virtually any movement you make is mimicked by your avatar. 

So the hardware is great, but what about the games?  Here is where I have to give Microsoft (or more appropriately the software house that designed the game) credit -- "Kinect Adventures" is very analogous to the Wii's bundled "Wii Sports" but in many ways it's a lot more fun and, crucially, the games are focused on teamwork and cooperation rather than competition.  For example, in one of the mini-games the players are, quite literally, stuck on the same boat as it travels down the rapids and both players must cooperate to get the boat downstream and accomplish tasks.  Watching my two young nieces play, I realized how in the video game world, including the Wii they got last Christmas, they are forced into competition with each other -- something that happens all too much in real life too.  But in Kinect Adventures, they were cooperating with each other to accomplish shared goals and it was a treat to watch.

Right now there are only a few games available for the system and I am skeptical about its mass acceptance (while the 360 has a massive installed base, the Kinect is a new peripheral and the market is far smaller, which may discourage game development).  However, by all appearances Microsoft got this one right.

Aside from the bit where it takes pictures of you during gameplay and uploads them to your Facebook page.  That I can do without.

NAS Update

Things have largely settled down now, but not all the news is good.

• RAM -- upgraded from 256mb to 1gb.  Successful and helps.
• DRIVES -- mixed news.  I tried putting in 5 2TB drives and I seemed to be hitting a wall at 8TB.  The NAS would say it was formatting but nothing was actually happening.  I even tried tricking it with 4 drives and then expanding into the 5th.  So I bought 5 1.5TB drives and that seems to be working.
• EXTERNAL DRIVES -- here's where I'm really frustrated.  My plan was to get an external RAID chassis to get additional storages.  Either external interface only seems to work with one external drive at a time, not a RAID array.  Grrr, I might have hit the wall.

Unless I can get the NAS to recognize an external drive array, either through eSATA or USB, I may have to just abandon the NAS where it is.  Of course I can still use it but it won't be able to handle my future plans which will require an additional 10-16 TB.

I may have to bite the bullet and build a cheap PC to be a new fileserver. 

Porsche Cayman R

The dilemma of liking Porsche.

The flagship model is a beetle designed by Hitler with its engine in the wrong place.  Everything else is held back.

Case in point is the Cayman -- also known as a Boxster with a roof.  It's a simpler, more basic car with its engine in the right place.  Unfortunately, Porsche holds it back.  Until the Cayman R, they didn't even fit it with a limited slip differential.

The Cayman is a great design that is held back by Porsche.  They don't fit the top engine from a 911 into it, let alone the turbo.  They don't give it the 911's AWD system.  And there's a reason for it.

Back in the mid 70s, Porsche wanted to move on from the 911 design -- which was based on the Volkswagen Beetle, which was designed by Hitler.  It has the distinction of having its engine in the wrong place -- all the way in the rear, behind the rear axle.  This makes the 911 handle like a pendulum.

When people design a car, the ultimate place to position the engine is in the middle -- between the driver and rear axle.  High end sports cars (such as the Ferrari 458, Lamborghinis since the Miura, etc.) use this configuration.  The next best solution is a front engine with a rear transaxle (the engine and transmission are split so one is over the front axle and the other is over the rear) -- cars like Corvettes and Aston Martins use this configuration.  Common cars have the engine and transmission all in the front.  The rear is just about the worst place to put an engine because it makes the front end light and makes the car susceptible to terrifying snap oversteer (spinning out).

Porsche originally intended to replace the 911 with the V8 grand tourer 928.  The evolution of the 944 into the 944 Turbo a few years later saw another Porsche finally challenge the 911 Turbo at the top of Porsche's range, for half the price.  It's a widely known secret that Porsche makes a hefty profit on the 911 and the fact that another Porsche at half the price could match its performance laid it out for all to see -- that Porsche had the 911 on a pedestal.

Porsche learned the lesson well -- don't threaten the 911's supremacy at the top of the lineup.  Even if that means making other models worse than they could be.

That's the lament I have with the Cayman.  It has a proper mid-engine design and is a simpler, back-to-basics sports car design.  But Porsche holds it back.

 "...the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw. " -- The Trees, Rush