America is becoming increasingly polarized. Continue reading “America’s core ideal: the echo chamber”
Benchmarking Microsoft BASICs
I decided it’d be an interesting project to try to benchmark the Microsoft BASICs – I’ve always seen the claim that QBASIC was slower than QuickBASIC, and I thought I’d put that to the test. Continue reading “Benchmarking Microsoft BASICs”
Is Tesla actually a car company?
It might seem crazy to ask whether Tesla’s a car company – they certainly make cars, and on paper, cars are about 82% of their YTD revenue as of the third quarter of FY2017. However, I’m going to argue that they might not be a car company, but rather an energy company that makes cars, and there’s a few things that make me believe that. Continue reading “Is Tesla actually a car company?”
The case for both simplifying LMP1-H, and making it more complex
I feel like there’s room for a follow up to my previous piece on the Le Mans Prototype 1-Hybrid subclass, now that there’s been additional news, including the news that Porsche is terminating their LMP1 program after this season is over. Continue reading “The case for both simplifying LMP1-H, and making it more complex”
My thoughts on the future of LMP1-H, after the 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans
It’s been a day since the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and I’ve finally put my thoughts together on it. It was something else, nothing like I’ve ever seen before.
Before the 24 Hours of Le Mans, predictions were that Toyota would walk away with the race on both pace and reliability. Predictions were that the all-new and huge LMP2 field would have failures en masse, having shown mediocre reliability in the lead-up to Le Mans. And, fears were that the GTE-Pro field would have poor balance of performance, allowing someone to run away with it. Continue reading “My thoughts on the future of LMP1-H, after the 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans”
Today in Bullshift: 2018 Camry Hybrid
This post was originally written for Oppositelock, but with the impending death of Kinja user blogs, I’m reposting it here.
Last time in Bullshift, we discussed the Lexus LC 500h, and its 4-speed e-CVT that pretends to be a 10-speed automatic at all times. Today’s offender is also an e-CVT from Toyota, the 2018 Camry Hybrid.
Continue reading “Today in Bullshift: 2018 Camry Hybrid”This is a bunch of bullshift. 10 “speeds” of bullshift.
This post was originally written for Oppositelock, but with the impending death of Kinja user blogs, I’m reposting it here.
So, last time I posted here, I said I’d think about doing a piece on the Toyota/Lexus Multi-Stage THS-II. This is that piece, but I thought I was basically going to do a technical overview, not a rant.
Continue reading “This is a bunch of bullshift. 10 “speeds” of bullshift.”Holy shit, 41% thermal efficiency out of a gasoline engine
This post was originally written for Oppositelock, but with the impending death of Kinja user blogs, I’m reposting it here.
Last week, Toyota detailed their next-generation powertrains for vehicles on their new architecture. In addition to several new transmissions, they announced a new modular engine family supporting varying cylinder displacements (much like Mazda’s SkyActiv-G family) and cylinder count, and detailed the first variant of that, the 2.5 liter Dynamic Force (what an awful marketing name) engine, which is almost certainly destined for the new Camry.
Continue reading “Holy shit, 41% thermal efficiency out of a gasoline engine”Flashing linear flash cards – quick notes
I recently bought an HP OmniBook 430 that needed a system ROM card, which has to be on a linear flash card. Continue reading “Flashing linear flash cards – quick notes”
The next trend in performance cars, in three cars
This post was originally written for Oppositelock, but with the potentially impending death of Kinja user blogs, I’m reposting it here.
Right now, we’re in a golden age of accessible high performance motoring. Hot hatches are everywhere, regular sedans from compact to full-size are available in hot versions, and there’s several affordable performance coupes of very different flavors.
Continue reading “The next trend in performance cars, in three cars”