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skreidleEvening featured: Latebra, fruitcake, Coke, chat with Jillian and Steve about various amusing and/or intellectual topics (including languages and a Falun Gong pamphlet I was handed earlier), other people watching Trainspotting in the next room, and us plus Oscar watching Queer as Folk on another TV. Post-Latebra featured: checking for the St. Vinnie's van, gone already.
Links!
From![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
macguyver, a more authoritative examination of the gap in Bush's Guard duty back in the 70s.
In response to my drool over the VW Touareg the other day,xviragox offers an entertaining Shame On You story about its inability to actually tow an Airstream trailer. :)
From a post (about nasty new spy/ad/malware behavior) linked from a comment to a post, I learned of Spybot - Search & Destroy, which is apparently a better program than Ad-Aware for finding/removing ad/spy/malware, and the two combined will find just about anything.
And now, from Brooke's boyfriend Simon, some freaking amazing statistics about Top Fuel dragsters, that you don't have to be a revhead to appreciate:
>Subject: FW: Top Fueller Dragsters..
>
>So you think your car is pretty impressive.
>
>For all the revheads....and even those who aren't.
>Some quite amazing statistics.
>You don't have to be a drag racing fan to appreciate these statistics.
>Some Interesting Top Fuel Dragster Facts:
>
>* One dragster's 500-inch Hemi makes more horsepower then the first 8
>rows at Daytona.
>* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 ∏ gallons of nitro
>per second, the same rate of fuel consumption as a fully loaded 747, but
>with 4 times the energy density.
>* The supercharger takes more power to drive then a stock hemi makes.
>* With nearly 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on
>overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into nearly-solid form before
>ignition.
>* Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock.
>* Dual magnetos apply 44 amps to each spark plug.
>
>This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.
>
>* At stoichiometric (exact) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture (for nitro), the
>flame front of nitro methane measures 7050 degrees F.
>* Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above
>the exhaust stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from
>atmospheric water vapour by the searing exhaust gases.
>* Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After ∏
>way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust
>valves at 1400 degrees F.
>* The engine can only be shut down by cutting off its fuel flow.
>* If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds
>up in those cylinders and then explodes with a force that can blow cylinder
>heads off the block in pieces or blow the block in half.
>* Dragsters twist the crank (torsionally) so far (20 degrees in the
>big end of the crank) that sometimes cam lobes are ground offset from front
>to rear to re-phase the valve timing somewhere closer to synchronisation
>with the pistons.
>* To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an
>average of over 4G's. But in reaching 200 mph well before ∏ track, launch
>acceleration is closer to 8G's.
>* If all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for
>once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs $1000.00 per second.
>* Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have read this
>sentence.
>* Top Fuel Engines ONLY turns 540 revolutions from light to light!
>* The redline is actually quite high at 9500rpm.
>* To give you an idea of this acceleration, the current TF dragster
>elapsed time record is 4.477 seconds for the quarter mile.
>* This means that you could be coming across the starting line in your
>average Lingenfelter powered "twin-turbo" Corvette at 200 mph (on a
>
>FLYING START) and the dragster would BEAT you to the finish line FROM A
>DEAD
>STOP in a Quarter mile distance!
Links!
From
macguyver, a more authoritative examination of the gap in Bush's Guard duty back in the 70s.In response to my drool over the VW Touareg the other day,
xviragox offers an entertaining Shame On You story about its inability to actually tow an Airstream trailer. :)From a post (about nasty new spy/ad/malware behavior) linked from a comment to a post, I learned of Spybot - Search & Destroy, which is apparently a better program than Ad-Aware for finding/removing ad/spy/malware, and the two combined will find just about anything.
And now, from Brooke's boyfriend Simon, some freaking amazing statistics about Top Fuel dragsters, that you don't have to be a revhead to appreciate:
>Subject: FW: Top Fueller Dragsters..
>
>So you think your car is pretty impressive.
>
>For all the revheads....and even those who aren't.
>Some quite amazing statistics.
>You don't have to be a drag racing fan to appreciate these statistics.
>Some Interesting Top Fuel Dragster Facts:
>
>* One dragster's 500-inch Hemi makes more horsepower then the first 8
>rows at Daytona.
>* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 ∏ gallons of nitro
>per second, the same rate of fuel consumption as a fully loaded 747, but
>with 4 times the energy density.
>* The supercharger takes more power to drive then a stock hemi makes.
>* With nearly 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on
>overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into nearly-solid form before
>ignition.
>* Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock.
>* Dual magnetos apply 44 amps to each spark plug.
>
>This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.
>
>* At stoichiometric (exact) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture (for nitro), the
>flame front of nitro methane measures 7050 degrees F.
>* Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above
>the exhaust stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from
>atmospheric water vapour by the searing exhaust gases.
>* Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After ∏
>way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust
>valves at 1400 degrees F.
>* The engine can only be shut down by cutting off its fuel flow.
>* If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds
>up in those cylinders and then explodes with a force that can blow cylinder
>heads off the block in pieces or blow the block in half.
>* Dragsters twist the crank (torsionally) so far (20 degrees in the
>big end of the crank) that sometimes cam lobes are ground offset from front
>to rear to re-phase the valve timing somewhere closer to synchronisation
>with the pistons.
>* To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an
>average of over 4G's. But in reaching 200 mph well before ∏ track, launch
>acceleration is closer to 8G's.
>* If all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for
>once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs $1000.00 per second.
>* Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have read this
>sentence.
>* Top Fuel Engines ONLY turns 540 revolutions from light to light!
>* The redline is actually quite high at 9500rpm.
>* To give you an idea of this acceleration, the current TF dragster
>elapsed time record is 4.477 seconds for the quarter mile.
>* This means that you could be coming across the starting line in your
>average Lingenfelter powered "twin-turbo" Corvette at 200 mph (on a
>
>FLYING START) and the dragster would BEAT you to the finish line FROM A
>DEAD
>STOP in a Quarter mile distance!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 05:39 am (UTC)the problem with both of them now... adware people are getting trickier (dammit!) so now they're starting to load things into your temp files that will just automatically reinstall-reinstall-reinstall. lather rinse repeat. the programs will just keep coming back.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-09 05:48 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-09 06:03 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-09 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 12:30 pm (UTC)Eh?
Still, good story. Lame VW!
Re:
Date: 2004-02-11 01:56 am (UTC)It seems the failing is not in the available power or torque, but in the suspension and hitch not designed for such a task. Also, truth in advertising seems to be a problem. :)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-11 12:53 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-12 04:12 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-12 12:11 pm (UTC)You can buy a 2003 Corvette Z06 w/405 HP w/10k miles from carmax for $40k, and you better believe that does what the commercial advertises.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-12 12:57 pm (UTC)As for price, well, in Aussie dollars (and imported here) the price range is $60K-$140K new, depending which engine you get. :)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-12 01:25 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-14 07:59 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-15 03:51 pm (UTC)Similar in price the BMW X5 (and X3) are arguably better handling and more luxurious.
And above all the new Infiniti FX35 is less money, and arguably more sporty for the money.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-16 12:30 am (UTC)Note that I wouldn't likely be willing to pay for any of these vehicles, but they're nice to look at/read about. :)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-16 02:19 pm (UTC)The $45,000 Dodge Ram SRT-10 has an 8.3 liter V-10 that makes 500 hp, and 525/p/f of torque at 4,200 rpm, with a much longer torque band. Even with the 5,000 lb curb weight, it goes 0-60 in 5.2 seconds, and does the quarter mile in 13.8 at 106 mph. And it will tow an airstream trailer.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-16 05:36 pm (UTC)I suppose the review was pushing the torque specs and glossing over some of the others, and the specs were in metric as well.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-16 05:49 pm (UTC)You can get a decent SUV new for $20k, and you can get something that can tow very well for around $25k -- and you can get a lot more used around that kind of money. I never see the point in spending $50k on a vehicle.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-20 11:35 pm (UTC)I could see spending $50K+ on a powerful sports car from a reputable manufacturer. Other than that, no--the car that gets me around town/country every day has no need to be that expensive.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-21 11:06 am (UTC)The Honda Element, Jeep Wrangler, and Suzuki Vitara V6 start around $16k, but they're obviously not your average SUVs.
The Ford F-350 pickup can tow the fuck out of a trailer, and starts around $22k with the 5.4 liter V8. Alternatively, $22k buys an F-150 with a 300hp V8. You get the idea.
And that's all new! Imagine what you can get used.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-22 08:42 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-22 02:00 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-28 09:10 am (UTC)