On ageing in 2011

Who gave anyone the right over my ageing? Who dare govern me in such a way? Bastards. I want names! I’ll decide how old I’ll be from now on. – Chris Aaron, 5:34pm, December 31st, 2010.

Be All You Can Be. Or Beethoven Will Frown Upon You.

Three years ago an American company called Shelby SuperCars – the SS as I like to think of them – rolled out the Ultimate Aero S…omething Or Another to claim the production car top speed record previously held by the Bugatti Veyron by just 3mph.

Just over a month ago, Bugatti promptly responded with the Veyron Super Sport.

Justly, the Veyron smashed the American’s face in; doing 267mph; 11mph more than the then Bush administration could come up with at the time.

Personally, I never really got what all the fuss was about because the SS never really had the Veyron on anything to start with. So it did 3mph more than the original land speed record set by the Veyron, but that’s just a town’s capture compared to seizure of Europe that Bugatti boasts.

In no other car can you go from a show at The Palais Garnier to a salt flat drag strip without so much as a blip. You simply do not turn up to chauffeur a member of the Japanese Imperial Family looking like a ragamuffin with wheels on.

You arrive in style, with your Bugatti Veyron, fit to say, “Jesus, fancy a ride in my new wheels? It’s got Hermès leather interior, Burnmester sound system, electronically adjustable everything, satellite navigation, and should there be need, a thousand horsepower under the bonnet.”

Simply having the SS build something with a million horsepower, no panache, a prayer for handling and wishful thinking for comfort, all wrapped up in what looks like construction scaffolding doesn’t make you better.

Leaving the topic of the Bugatti Veyron the greatest car ever made behind – because it just is – I’m led nicely to what really felt like addressing today.

If you set out today to build say, a dog house, would you in your mind set out to build the best dog house you know and will learn to build? Or just a combination of what was not originally meant to be a roof, four and a half walls, and some paint that says, ‘Beethov’ above the entrance?

In doing so, you’ll know very well that Beethoven isn’t going to be impressed when he sets his eyes on this arrangement. And he’s going to notice a couple of things about you as soon as he’s handed the keys to his new place. 1. You’re a shit craftsman, 2. You don’t love him enough to try harder, 3. He’ll know never again to give you all his hard-earned puppy money in return for your services of any kind.

In knowing so, what was it that would’ve compelled you to make it like so in the first place?

This is, as I’ve come to realise, man’s greatest downfall yet. Why do we speak without conviction? Why do we pursue without ambition or commitment? Why do we attempt anything knowing that it won’t be as good as it really could be?

If you’re going to do anything at all, do it with everything you’ve got. Do it to your heart’s content. Doesn’t matter if you fail or it turns out to be less than less than perfect. At least you’ll know that Beethoven got the best house he could have gotten from you, and he’ll appreciate it.

And he’ll come back to you for the remodel he’ll need in his puppy kitchen because he knows you’ll put in the same effort you did on your last job, which pleased him because it was the best.

Equally, I’d pay two million Euros – if I had two million Euros – for a Bugatti Veyron because it is the best a road legal car can be at going really fast. I’d also give away the function of my left leg for a lifetime with Kate Beckinsale because she’s the best thing god’s ever given man.

Adversely, I hate Protons and Peroduas. I can’t help but sense that their products were conceived during a corporate brainstorming session where fat, greedy blokes designed on screwing over the nation for a couple of quick bucks. Absent of inspired genius, no divine intervention and certainly no desire of leaving a legacy behind via the production of one really great/ proper car.

So if giving it your all – be it for the creation of a dog house, writing a blog article or loving someone – results in yours and everyone else’s long-term all-round happiness, why is it that we continue to be complete halfwits and do shit jobs on every bit of roadwork, science project, government initiative and so on? Knowing very well that there’ll sooner or later be a sad puppy that no longer loves you nor trusts you with any more of his puppy money.

For want of a greener Formula One

In a recent gush of will by a bunch of men in white coats who hang around Formula One paddocks with clipboards in their hands, the FIA has decided that it should now crack down on making Formula One a greener sport harder than ever.

Apart from the already agreed upon new engine specifications for the 2013 season, – a measly 1.5 litre, four-cylinder turbo-charged engine – the FIA is still hell-bent on finding more ways in which Formula One can earn further merits of green-ism. This scares me a whole lot to be honest.

The battle to make Formula One a green sport was always going to be a case of the Irresistible Force Paradox wasn’t it? Where an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. The nature of a Formula One car and its engineers is to be the best and the quickest it can be, while green-ism persists that they do it the other, slower way around. Imposing Draconian laws to force teams into submission would do next to nothing but destroy the sport, so what are we to do then?

One bit of brilliance as seen recently in the field of merit-earning green-ism is the reintroduction of KERS to the 2011 season. Although nothing has been confirmed just yet, teams have already begun tinkering with the idea of making KERS a cost-effective solution that everyone can garner to a benefit next year.

Personally, I like the KERS system. It recycles wasted power to produce even more power. Even Ferrari’s latest road-going concoction includes the system, the 2010 Ferrari 599 HY KERS. A mouthful to say the least, but Ferrari really did get the job of making a ‘green’ car done better than most didn’t they? Because unlike most other hybrid attempts that oddly end up being wimpy hatchbacks, Ferrari found yet another way to make the 599 go even faster. Which really should be the case with Formula One too.

I have complete faith in the FIA and Formula One teams to find us similar methods to the KERS initiative to paint Formula One greener. Basically, making the sport more environmentally friendly without slowing it down all that much. But what if they don’t? What if all we’re left with is a battery powered race car and races that wouldn’t end in under two hours because pitstops now require a man plugging cars into walls for 12 hours?

Fear not. Because in doing a little research, we may have ran into a couple of ideas that Formula One coats might find useful, if only we could shout that loud.

For instance, a single marathon of up to a thousand participants produces more carbon emissions than an entire Formula One season does. A Boeing 747 burns more fuel on a single flight from Japan to Europe than an entire Formula One season would. And here’s a quote from Chris Goodall, leading environmentalist and author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, who believes that driving to the shops is far better than walking, “The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes.”

With just this in mind, it’s already easy to imagine a long list of changes that can be better tailored to give the sport its green credentials without getting too many frizzy haired men upset.

What if we made the aircrafts used to transport Formula One teams and their luggage around more environmentally friendly, by say, plane-pooling? Personnel in one plane, cars and the other stuff in another bigger one?

What about turning all those huge trucks used to transport Formula One cars and their mobile garages into 100% plug-in vehicles which use no fuel at all. After all, with those trucks as slow as they already are, and its drivers requiring a good eight to 10 hour nap – enough time to have the batteries charged again -, it wouldn’t hurt too much, would it?

With the previous in mind, what about limiting the Formula One calendar to just destinations which can be reached by road instead of by plane? Asian countries may suffer, but given the situation we’ll be facing in a couple of years, I say better Formula One races in another country yet on your tele, than no Formula One at all.

The point I guess I’m trying to make here is that, there are many, many ways to get around making Formula One racing greener without destroying the spectacle. And I’m willing to bet that there are probably even more people than that who would be better qualified at thinking up these ideas.

Green decadent capitalist ideals like reducing engine revs from 19,000rpm’s to 10,000rpm’s to make cars less noisy and swapping the internal combustion engine for a couple of 6,000 batteries per car will completely destroy the sport as we know it.

Formula One is a sport of great significance. It generates wealth on a global scale, creates job opportunities, makes daily applicable advances in technology and gives us an all-round warm and fuzzy feeling inside, all whilst paving the way forward for yours and mine road-going vehicles towards being more cost and environmentally friendly. That in itself should be inspiration enough to not ruin it.

http://sport.malaysia.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4065519

One of man’s many last ditch efforts to save the earth

Hybrids are fascinating things. They say it’s a car, but I see it as more of a ‘promise’ rather than anything else. A promise of a better tomorrow, a promise that baby squirrels will not be evicted, and a promise that in buying one, you’ll be doing your part in helping to accomplish these things.

But all isn’t well in hybrid land. The big concern over developing such fascinating things is that our world is still slowly dying, and with it its resources of which we use to sustain a happy life on earth. This is all fair and well but for some reason, I can’t help but question the means here. Popular culture will tell you that, yes, the world is dying and we need to do our part. But how much has popular culture ever known about anything anyways?

In the company of a couple of pints, I thought to myself, is the world really on the verge of its own extinction? Status quo dictates that when fossil fuels run out and the climate reaches a point of no return, yes, we’ll all die. But I think I know the world to be a little more resilient than that.

I know that we’ve survived some really bad times and yet come out on top of things as we only seem to know how. Terrorism, world wars, natural disasters, the mullet, we’ve survived it all.

I also know that apart from mankind’s aid, the world is very capable of healing itself better than any man knows how to. Oceans absorb greenhouse gasses faster than you can think, endangered species have an innate ability to reproduce and rebound, and the earth is very capable of creating its own ozone layer if and when it is needed.

And then there’s the Prius. One of man’s many last ditch efforts to save the earth.

Again, hybrids are fascinating things. The very way it functions and its promise is more or less the reason you or your friends might buy one. But I find all this a little deceiving and confusing. First of what they’ll tell you about Hybrid cars is that it runs on an electric motor – which of course is a good thing in these dark times.

“The gas engine on the Toyota Prius does not run at all when you are driving around town. This is what they tell you.”

This is what they tell you. But if you like me aren’t a maniacal motorist, you’d know that “around town” speeds rarely ever exceed 50 Km/h. So what happens after 51 Km/h?

The fact is that, there’s also a regular engine much like the one in a regular car. But why would anyone need two engines? Confused? Better not be, or you might end up with a Prius.

It has a petrol engine and an electronic motor because to drive using the electronic motor, you must first charge the batteries through the running of your regular petrol engine. Only then can you use the electronic motor, which happens to switch back to using its regular petrol engine at speeds higher than 51km/h or so, or when the batteries go flat again.

The highlight of the hybrid car is that it produces no worse than the air over a field of rapidly growing vegetation through its exhaust pipes at the cost of a whole lot less fuel. This I’m afraid, isn’t enough. Mainly because hybrid cars still need fuel to run, fuel that we’re rapidly running out of – another very questionable theory of which should be in discussion in the near future. Anyways…

The mechanics and promise of the Prius is usually the part we get taken away with because it sounds very much like the real deal. But it isn’t. It’s just silicone substitute for the real fix. It is very likely that the next real fix isn’t found in a dealership just yet, but can instead be found in places like your kitchen, a nearby river or lake, in the air we breathe and everywhere in between. This is hydrogen.

Hydrogen fuel cells, the next likely fuel source, isn’t the cheapest thing to mass produce just yet despite its abundance. But it also wasn’t the cheapest thing to send a man to the moon. It wasn’t the cheapest thing to split the atom, and god knows it wasn’t the cheapest or easiest thing to develop the new Ferrari 458 Italia or the new McLaren MP4-12c. It isn’t very likely that the fuel cell is going to be the worst or hardest thing we’ve done so far.

In developing such vehicles and its necessary fuel cells for mass usage, of course we’d also be depleting another of earth’s resources – water. Yes, but this might be a resource we could use a little less of. Here’s Alan Caruba’s explanation of this:

“The most active element of the atmosphere is the 95% of water vapor that forms a protective layer around the Earth.

“The science involved is fairly simple. Clouds have a warming effect because, in order for water vapor to condense back into water droplets, the water molecules must first re-emit the energy they absorbed to become vapor. That latent heat causes the local environment to feel warmer. It is this constant interchange that determines whether wherever you’re at right now is warmer or cooler”

The highlight of the hybrid car is then that it produces the same air over a field of rapidly growing vegetation through its exhausts at the cost of a whole lot less fuel. This I’m afraid, isn’t enough. Mainly because hybrid cars still need fuel to run. Fuel that we’re rapidly running out of – another very questionable theory of which should be in discussion in the near future.

Environment-friendlies will tell you that you should buy a hybrid because you’d be doing baby squirrels a favour in sustaining their habitats while Toyota will tell you to buy a Prius because they know you have money and that you’re gullible.

I’d personally rather stay and environment-acquaintance for the time being.