Fastest convertibles on the planet

If you like convertibles, especially fast ones, here's a treat for you...(and as always, click on any image to enlarge)

Right off the bat, fast as a bat out of hell, is the very fastest convertible in the world. It's so fast, it's name is literally "speed"(in French)--The Bugatti 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse.




McLaren MP4 12C Spyder. Looks like it's tearing down the road at 300 km/h, even when it's not moving at all.





2013 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT. Okay, so no gullwing doors. But this one's a convertible!

2014 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible, at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show on March 5, 2013

1957 Chevrolet Corvette. If the newest one isn't quite your speed, how about a classic?

A Porsche 918 Spyder concept. Unveiled as three years ago in Geneva, you won't be able to get your hands on a 918 until the end of this year. But with a 4.6L V8 putting out 580 horsepower, combined with two electric motors turning out an additional 240 hp, you can bet it'll be worth the wait.

Replica of James Dean's 1955 Porsche "Beck" Spyder.

Pagani Zonda. "Wicked" is the first word that comes to mind.

Lamborghini Aventador J. This is probably my favourite. It just spews sex appeal. No, ladies--the Italian gentleman is not part of the standard equipment.

Ferrari 599 SA APERTA

Lamborghini Gallardo LP-560 4 Spyder at the 83rd Geneva International Motor Show, March 5, 2013. Sleek lines make for a delicious, aerodynamic look. Same with the car.

The 2010 Tesla Roadster sport. Very different look. I don't know if I like it, but it is different.

BMW i8 Spyder Concept. As soon as I saw this one, I thought it looks like a toy car. Then, I looked at the name. It is a toy.

Lamborghini Reventon. Say it with me on 3. One, two, three...Transformer!

Content copied from http://www.calgaryherald.com/cars/fast+convertibles/8326419/story.html


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Marilyn in an intimate moment

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Jody Arias to release book, soon

Look for it at your newsstand.

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Jodi Arias murder trial

Today, in the Jodi Arias murder trial, prosecuting attorney, Juan Martinez, asked state's witness, psychologist Jill Hayes, the burning question regarding Arias' lies...

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The inimitable George Carlin

It's like he took the words right out of my mouth.

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Bush presidential library

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Oh, those powerful computers!

You often hear about how computers keep getting so much faster and bigger. Well, here's an interesting thing I just found. I stumbled upon a web page where a few users had mentioned how much memory was being dedicated by their browser (Chrome) for the tab they were currently viewing (the same one they were posting to). They described using the Chrome task manager to see this usage.

So, I invoked it (Shift-esc will do it), and sure enough, all my tabs were there indicating the amount of memory dedicated to each. The page I was viewing was using over 70 mb.

Being an old-school programmer for almost 25 years, it brought to mind that some of the early computers had as little as 2 kb total memory. That's not a typo. In 2 kb of memory sat (whatever was currently needed of) the operating system, control blocks to manage the computer, the user's program, and some amount of data. Back then, one of a programmer's biggest challenges was to find ingenious ways of minimizing storage requirements. If your program was too big, you had to slice it and dice it (called overlays) so that you could use the same storage area to load only the piece you needed to perform a specific function at that specific moment in time.

Then, I looked at the page in my tab and noticed that perhaps 80% of the page was blank space. We have come a very long way since those first computers which came shortly after the wheel was invented. Computers are so much faster and bigger, now. When you need 70 mb of silicon just to display perhaps 2 kb of data, it'd better be damn big and fast. Funny thing is, that despite the leaps and bounds of advancement in hardware technology, the software has gotten decidedly more stupid.

This is understandable since in the old days, the few hundred programmers that were employed in a large city were all that were needed and so represented la creme de la creme. Today, just about everyone needs to be a "programmer", no matter how poor their talent and aptitude. Armies of people "earn" their living in information processing. The ingenuity of the programmer has been replaced by the ingenuity of the hardware developer--making bigger and faster machines capable of supporting even the most unimaginative programmer. Of course, they are rarely called "programmers", anymore. They are "developers", mostly just shuffling things around on a screen.

The above does not apply to operating system developers, etc. I do realize there are still some bastions of low-level programmers around.

I can't imagine what the heck the other 69.9 mb is being used for. I guess I'm not quite as imaginative as I thought I was.


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The GOP

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The Jodi Arias saga continues

 Alyce LaViolette, expert witness for the defence on domestic violence in the Jody Arias murder trial conducting one of many of her acclaimed seminars entitled "Was Snow White a Battered Woman?".

Well, I found a copy of the story of Snow White and read it very carefully (twice) and even though I may not be an expert, it is my opinion that Snow White was not battered. I found not an iota of evidence to support that outlandish claim. I read nothing to suggest that she was battered, breaded or even lightly dusted with flour, let alone battered.

I apologize to true victims of abuse of either gender for making light of this subject. Many people seem to forget that the victim in this case was Travis Alexander and not Jodi Arias. There is not a shred of evidence that Mr. Alexander was ever physically violent toward Ms. Arias. However, it's been well established that not only was Jodi a vindictive, scheming, conniving, stalker, but also a compulsive liar.

And as for Ms. LaViolette, this woman sees abuse (and victims) everywhere she looks, especially of the male toward female variety. She is almost totally blind to the reverse situation, ignoring all evidence of such.


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Jodi Arias murder trial

Spousal abuse "expert", Alyce LaViolette has had about as much as she wants from Prosecutor Juan Martinez--gives him a lesson he won't soon forget.

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Cool tie

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If you've been tracking the Jodi Arias murder trial...

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Virtual machines

They're still (re-)discovering the superiority of big systems and virtualization that we had back in the 60's with CP67. Latest incarnation is running VMs on IBM's RISC technology. It's like watching each new generation make "ooh" and "aah" sounds over 60's vintage vehicles at every car show. One can only dream of how much further advanced the whole world might be now if it hadn't abandoned far-superior mainframes and chased after that cheap harlot known as Unix.

Story

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The war on freedom

It's just as good as lost. Our masters have lulled us into a groggy state and have clobbered us with the club of oppression. We've reached the end of the line in a long struggle for personal freedom, privacy, liberty, security and human rights. We are now headed in reverse. It's anyone's guess how far back our overlords will take us.

I just read an article in The National Post concerning whether police in Canada have the right to order communications companies to forward text messages sent between their customers to police without a warrant. The  Supreme Court is expected to rule on this question today (March 27, 2013). In this same article, I discovered that police in Ontario have already won the right to peruse a person's cell phone (without a warrant) if it is not password-protected or not locked against unauthorized use.

This has infuriated me. Of all the preposterous reasons one can come up with to usurp our privacy, this is one of the most inane. It's the equivalent of saying that if you forget to lock your back door, police are free to enter and snoop around at will. Just because one doesn't fortify his private property doesn't mean he relinquishes all rights to that property. If you inadvertently leave your car door unlocked, can police legally search it? The argument is ridiculous.

Post article


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Busty women get bigger tips

That may come as no surprise, but someone actually researched it. They did a scientific study as if  there were some other possibility.

There are a whole range of benefits that come with attractiveness, few of which are interesting, but I happened to stumble onto one. The observers of the following study published statistics on just how much attractiveness played a part in their observations. They found that when it came to hitchhiking females, female drivers were unfazed by breast size and offered a lift at a fairly steady rate. However, only 15% of men pulled over for a woman sporting an A-cup, while nearly 25% were enticed enough to give a ride to a woman with a C-cup. The numbers for a B-cup were only marginally higher than those for an A-cup. I guess the implication is that if breasts aren't large enough to cause a man to possibly do permanent damage to his neck from jerking his head to the side to gawk, they have no magic.

Don't complain to me about sexism--I'm only the messenger.

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Ripped from the headlines

Mom picking up son charged with drunk driving also charged with drunk driving

INNISFIL, Ont. — Police say a mother who came to pick up her son after he was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving found herself charged with the same offence.

Police say it started when an officer pulled over a speeding vehicle in Innisfil, Ont., just before 1 a.m. Sunday.

Investigators say the driver, a 27-year-old Newmarket, Ont., man, failed a roadside screening test and was taken to a police station north of Toronto, where he was charged with impaired driving.

Police say when his 53-year-old mother came to retrieve him a few hours later, the same officer smelled alcohol and made her take a breathalyzer test.

They say she failed the test and has been charged with impaired driving.

Both have had their vehicles impounded and licences suspended for 90 days. They are due in court next month.

LINK

Now, that's a candidate for mom-of-the-year honours. Even though she was drunk as a skunk, when the call came in that her little boy needed her, she set aside the real possibility of great personal injury to herself and others for the convenience of her idiot child.

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I got robbed!

About a week ago, I stuck a wrought iron shepherd's hook in the front yard and hung a bird feeder on it. Later, I poured some feed in it and saw that it became very popular with doves, finches, cardinals, sparrows, etc. Then, to our chagrin, the squirrels managed to climb the half-inch diameter post and shake the feeder so that seeds fall to the ground and they'd scrounge a free meal.

After a few days, the evil rodents actually learned to stand to the side of the feeder, open the lid and get right inside and eat to their hearts' content.

Well, I wasn't going to be robbed by a pea-brained rat, so this morning, I dabbed a paper towel with cooking oil, went outside and rubbed down about a two foot section of the pole up from about a foot off the ground.

We stood at the doorway and waited. Sure enough, Mr. Crook wanders over, sees us watching, but decides we're no threat. He jumps up on the pole to about the middle of the greased area, and for a split second is motionless then suddenly slides down about a foot, all the while staring at us with a look that I'm sure said "WTF???.

I got my camera hoping to catch a repeat performance on video, but alas, it was not to be. I'll keep a look-out just in case some other wise guy gets the same idea.



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