I recently realized I hadn't been keeping up with FactCheck.org...bad Clif, BAD!
- It claims McCain "voted to
allow illegals to collect Social Security." That's untrue. Nobody who
is in the country illegally could be paid any Social Security benefits
under McCain's immigration bill.
- It
implies McCain supported "amnesty" for illegal immigrants. That word
isn't accurate. Illegal immigrants wouldn't have received a blanket
pardon under McCain's bill. Instead, they would have had to pay
thousands in penalties and fees to gain legal status. In fact, in 2005
Romney called McCain’s proposal “reasonable” and said it wasn’t amnesty.
- The ad says Romney "cut taxes" in Massachusetts. While he did cut some taxes – for example, enacting business tax credits – tax rates remained unchanged. Plus, Romney raised state revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars per year by increasing fees and closing corporate tax loopholes.
Read the full article at FactCheck.org.
Stolen from The Car Connection:
Unless you've been on planet Nader for the last few years, you knew Chevrolet was brewing up an uber-Vette. Amid all the hype, spy photos, leaked photos (and subsequent prosecutions), rumors, and names (Blue Devil, SS, Sting Ray, Z07), any dolt could discern that this new Corvette had the potential to be amazing.
During its annual press preview for the Detroit auto show, GM showed journalists what we've all been waiting for; the official, almost-ready-for-production 2009 Corvette ZR1 destined to hit showrooms next September.
Tom Wallace, Corvette Chief Engineer, began the presentation by talking about what started the ZR1 program. To our group of gathered reporters, he recounted a meeting that took place more than six years ago when GM Chairman Rick Wagoner asked what a $100,000 Corvette would look and perform like. On cue but out of sight of our pack of writers, a sinister-sounding V-8 fired up. Bob Lutz, GM Vice Chairman, then drove the ZR1 out into the meeting area.
After Lutz slid out from behind the wheel, he gave his driving impressions of the ZR1, "What's so terrific about this car is that it is very docile and easy to drive, but then when you step into it, the power just never stops." Subsequent presentations explained why.
Final specifications are not yet available because the development team is still fine-tuning powertrain and chassis calibrations, but this is what GM told us. The new LS9 engine is a 6.2-liter supercharged and intercooled V-8 that shares key dimensions and some features with the current Z06's LS7. The "9" uses a fifth-generation low-profile Eaton supercharger that itself incorporates plenty of new technology. Its impellers sport four veins instead of three, greatly improving volumetric efficiencies while reducing parasitic losses. Compared to the previous generation blower that required approximately 120 horsepower at maximum boost, the new unit draws only 80. Final horsepower numbers will exceed 620 and torque should come in around 600 lb-ft. The rumor mill pegs the target horsepower figure at 650.
The top of the supercharger is visible when the hood is closed thanks to a Lexan window placed in the center of the carbon fiber hood. The hood itself eschews big bulges for tasteful lines that tightly envelop the LS9 (compared to previous LS engines, the LS9 is only one inch taller overall, even with the supercharger and intercooler). No Pro-Stock hood scoop necessary.
The transmission is a modified version of the Tremec six-speed used in so many high-performance vehicles, including the Viper. In the ZR1, this iteration sports a close-ratio gear set that aids in acceleration. Unlike in the current Corvette where top speed is achieved in fifth gear, an estimated top speed of over 200 mph for the ZR1 will come in sixth. Wallace commented that, "One interior change we had to make was to ditch the standard 200-mph speedometer with a 220-mph unit because this car will so easily exceed 200."
His pride was clearly evident. He added later that this combination is expected to economical enough to avoid the gas-guzzler tax. No specific performance figures were quoted, but Wallace said the ZR1 would easily beat the current Z06's performance of 3.7 seconds to 60 mph and the current car's 7:42-second lap time at Nurburgring. One member of the team noted that in its current form, first gear is good for 67 mph, an indication of the new gearing and the LS9's ability to rev.
With so much power comes heat, so the ZR1 has more and bigger coolers and heat exchangers for all powertrain components. A massive front spoiler with an integral splitter helps channel air to all the right places. Side sill extensions are similar to what was used on the C6R racecar. The side vents feature a large strake that bisects the opening.
Chassis-wise, Magnetic Ride Control (MRC) is standard. The near instant response of the dampers allows for softer spring rates, and GM claims the ride of the ZR1 is more compliant than the current Z06. Tire size increases at both ends, with 19-inch rims in front and 20-inch rims in the rear sporting 335/25Z/20 Michelin PS2s. Wheel widths are 10 and 12 inches respectively.
Brakes discs are huge carbon-ceramic units that are clamped on by six-piston Brembo calipers in front and four-piston units in the rear. The rear discs are as large as the fronts found on other supercars. Metal discs used on the Z06 were provided for comparison on a table-top display, and were considerably heavier. Of course, lighter rotating and unsprung mass is critical for improving every aspect of performance.
The Corvette development team took weight out of the ZR1 wherever possible. Carbon fiber is used extensively, even on panels exposed to strong UV light like the roof and roof pillars. (Apparently, UV breaks down the bonding elements within carbon fiber, rendering the material brittle in as little as five years.) GM's solution is a special clearcoat that costs upwards of $2000/gallon.
According to the Harlan Charles, Corvette Product Planner, the ZR1 will be offered in seven colors and offer two wheels (one chrome). The standard ZR1 will feature interior equipment similar to a standard Z06, and there will be one major option package similar to the 4LT that includes the fully leather-wrapped interior. If pricing of 2008 models provides any indication, this RPO will cost around $8,000. Charles also noted that because there is only one set of production tools for the carbon-fiber body panels, yearly production is not expected to exceed 2000 units.
Just as the Z06 used the color red to highlight key components, the ZR1 uses blue accents on the LS9 and on the model's logo. Perhaps this is a tip of the hat to the Blue Devil moniker that surfaced early? GM would neither confirm nor deny.
Regardless, this is what a $100,000 Corvette looks like. Wagoner should be quite happy, nod to his past or not.
Beer Contains Female Hormones
Last month, National University of Lesotho scientists released the
results of a recent analysis that revealed the presence of female hormones in
beer.
Men should take a concerned look at their beer consumption. The theory
is that beer contains female hormones (hops contain phytoestrogens) and
that by drinking enough beer, men turn into women.
To test the theory, 100 men drank 8 pints of beer each within a 1 hour
period It was then observed that 100% of the test subjects:
1) Argued over nothing.
2) Refused to apologize when obviously wrong.
3) Gained weight.
4) Talked excessively without making sense.
5) Became overly emotional.
6) Couldn't drive.
7) Failed to think rationally.
8) Had to sit down while urinating.
No further testing was considered necessary.
Tom forwarded me a cool video of the inside of a gas engine:
I'm a Chevy man, but Toyota's coming out with some VERY impressive ads. The first two remind me of the engineering in a couple of old Honda commercials.
This one freaks me out:
Read the entire article at Information Week:
...
AN ENDANGERED OS?
Applications will always need an operating system
to run, right? Not with BEA's WebLogic Server Virtual Edition, or
WLS-VE. It replaces the conventional OS with LiquidVM, a
microkernel-based Java virtual machine. In turn, the Java VM runs
directly on a VMware hypervisor, without the need for Windows or Linux.
"We realized the hypervisor had eaten into a lot of what an application
needs from an OS," says Guy Churchward, VP and product manager of
WebLogic products at BEA.
...
Not only will this architecture eliminate OS management costs, Vaughn
says, but he also expects to increase the number of virtual machines
per physical server because of the reduced overhead of a microkernel
vs. a full operating system. In addition, WLS-VE supports several of
VMware's most popular features, including VMotion, which lets managers
move applications from one physical machine to another without
disruption.
...
In 2006, IDC predicted that factory installations of preconfigured
operating systems on servers would decline as customers instead chose
server hardware with a hypervisor preinstalled.
VMware's latest release aims to make that prediction a reality. Last month, it introduced ESX Server 3i, a 32-Mbyte hypervisor that comes integrated with hardware shipped by server vendors, including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Fujitsu. These servers will boot directly into a hypervisor. XenSource also announced XenExpress OEM Edition, which will let server vendors install the Xen hypervisor. Xen, which is being acquired by Citrix Systems, says it will announce OEM partners later this year.
...
In many enterprises, the default assumption is that new applications will be deployed in virtualized environments. "Customers are saying they have to justify not virtualizing new apps," says Rich Fomin, lead product manager for BMC Performance Manager.
...
THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING
It's too early to declare a winner in the battle between Microsoft and
VMware. But the upstart has done an admirable job of preparing the
ground in its favor. Every day that Microsoft's hypervisor is absent is
another day VMware's hypervisor gains easy market share. VMware has
assembled a large and growing ecosystem of big and small vendors that
are increasingly making VMware the linchpin of a virtualized data
center.
Most important, the transition to a virtualized environment, in which the operating system is no longer the software foundation of a server infrastructure--and in some cases isn't even required to run applications--robs Microsoft of a core power base.
Virtualization won't kill the operating system, but it does shift the balance of power. The ground is too unstable to declare a new king, but one thing is clear: The throne will be a hypervisor.
I hit VMworld this year and was completely blown away. I was already a long time VMware user and have been using ESX for almost a year now. (There's nothing like having your virtual machine that's running Virtual Center being automatically moved from one physical ESX server to another...while it's running (via DRS/VMotion). Completely mind blowing!) While at VMworld there were a number of innovations VMware as well as other's announced that are starting to make it to the mainstream, well, mainstream tech press now. Two of the coolest innovations announced are Storage VMotion and Distributed Power Management. Check out the excerpts below and the articles themselves. Cool stuff!
an excerpt from an article on Byte and Switch:
As part of today's ESX Server announcements, VMware also unveiled Storage VMotion, effectively adapting one of its core virtual server technologies to the storage realm. "Storage VMotion will do the same things for storage arrays as VMotion does for servers," explains Balansky. "It will enable you to migrate the virtual machine disk file from one storage array to another."
Just as VMotion lets users migrate running VMs from physical server to physical server, so the storage version can be used for maintenance work on storage arrays, according to the exec.
ESG analyst Bowker identified the launch of
storage VMotion as a step in the right direction by VMware. "It would
be nice to have different tiers of storage associated with VMs," he
says. "Let's say that I have a virtual application that becomes very
busy at the end of the month, you can migrate that to a different tier
of storage as needed."
The feature, called Distributed Power Management, monitors how hard servers are working and moves virtual machines to new machines to let unneeded servers be shut down. When workload picks up again, the servers are powered up again, according to the publicly traded EMC subsidiary.
When we heard that RUB was commissioning Orange County Chopper, of American Chopper fame, to make a mobile barbecue pit, we thought it was a pretty cool idea. We expected it to be a novelty, like a two-headed kitten or the world’s largest ball of string. Nothing prepared us for the mind-numbing coolness of the actual RUB Chopper: The restaurant’s owner, Andrew Fischel, correctly characterizes as “the sickest, baddest thing in the world.”
We had some doubts, too, about the utility of the thing: Was it really that good of an idea to have what amounts to a giant wood oven inches from a gas tank? But the RUB guys have already cooked ribs, brisket, and pork butt on it, and they aren’t dead yet. When asked if it was dangerous, Fischel replied breezily, “I don’t know. No one’s ever built one of these before.” Let’s hope we don’t find out the hard way.
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