Daily Archives: June 20, 2012

One of the few reasons I still check in over at FB anymore is see the hilarious stuff… 1

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4306 days ago)

One of the few reasons I still check in over at FB anymore is see the hilarious stuff that +George Takei posts. It would be great to have him come over to G+ so add him to your circles.

Reshared post from +Mike Elgan

Join the effort to beam +George Takei from Facebook to Google+!

Unless you're new to the planet, you've heard about actor +George Takei's vocal complaints against Facebook's idea to actually deliver your posts only if you pay. (Right now, Facebook secretly deletes most of the status updates you post without telling you or the people who will never see them.) 

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/06/14/george-takei-fires-his-phaser-at-facebook/

A growing red-shirt army of Google+ pleeps, including +Robert Partridge, +Stephanie Van Pelt, +Danial Hallock, +Sarah Rios, +Simon Skiles and others are banding together to beam the one and only +George Takei from the inhospitable Planet Facebook to the Starship Google+!

(Too much?) 

Here's what you can do to join the effort: 

1. Circle +George Takei

2. Plus-one and share this message to grow the movement. 

3. Write a comment below in support of +George Takei dumping Facebook and moving to Google+!

https://plus.google.com/u/0/102004895957308863792/posts/9LhGPmKywft

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The American Le Mans Series added the LMP Challenge class a couple of years ago as…

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4306 days ago)

The American Le Mans Series added the LMP Challenge class a couple of years ago as a lower cost entry point for sports prototype racing.  The LMPC cars use a common fixed price Oreca chassis powered by a production based +Chevrolet Corvette small block V8. Since the class was launched these cars have been fueled by E10 (10% ethanol, 90% gas).

ALMS is now investigating the possibility of converting the LMPC cars to run on compressed natural gas starting as early as 2013. That would make it the first major racing series to run on methane. In the LMP1, LMP2 and GT classes, various cars run on E10, cellulosic E85, diesel and biobutanol, making ALMS the most fuel diverse racing series in the world.  

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ALMS Exploring Natural Gas for PC Class | American Le Mans Series
BRASELTON, Ga. (June 20, 2012) – The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA), sanctioning body for the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón, announced that it has entered into an …

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Back in the mid-90s as an engineer at a major global automotive supplier, I spent… 2

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ patents on by (updated 4305 days ago)

Back in the mid-90s as an engineer at a major global automotive supplier, I spent way too many hours analyzing and drafting software patents for slip control systems (anti-lock brakes, traction control and vehicle stability control).

At the time a factor of 10x for the time spent on the patent vs actual development was probably on the high side, we certainly wasted a lot of time on patents. 

I watch today's battles between Apple and the rest of the mobile industry with a mix of bemusement and anger. When I first went to work after getting my mechanical engineering degree, we didn't even really think about patents for the control software, just the hardware we were using.

Once we started making some market inroads with a new system we developed, we learned that our major competitor had a ton of software patents that they were threatening to use against us (sound familiar?). A significant chunk of the engineering effort over the next 12 months was spent going back and tweaking our control algorithms just enough to get around the patents without significantly impacting performance. 

Unlike the Apple vs et al situation today, we were fortunate enough to learn about the potential problems early enough that we could avoid any litigation. We ended up filing a ton of software patents of our own so we ended up in a mutually assured destruction scenario with the competition. Needless to say, none of this actually made the product better, it just made work for IP lawyers and increased the engineering cost of the system. 

Thus I've been a staunch opponent of software patents (and increasingly all patents) ever since. 
#patents  

Reshared post from +Electronic Frontier Foundation

From Defend Innovation: "I'm a co-inventor on 7 patents, and know a bit about how silly software patents are. Most of them do not protect innovation. When it takes 10x longer to do the patent paperwork than to come up with the invention in the first place, how innovative is the thing you are patenting anyway?"  Join the movement to get software patents out of the way of innovation: https://defendinnovation.org

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Defend Innovation
The patent system is in crisis, and it endangers the future of software development in the United States. Let's create a system that defends innovation, instead of hindering it.

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Not so long ago, the idea that we could have road-legal pony cars like the  +Chevrolet Camaro… 2

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4305 days ago)

Not so long ago, the idea that we could have road-legal pony cars like the  +Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and +Ford Motor Company Shelby GT500 producing 580-662 hp and getting around a race track at these kinds of speeds would have been deemed ludicrous. 

Now both of these venerable machines are running with the exotic big boys. 

The Camaro in particular gets a huge benefit from magneto-rheological dampers that previously have done wondrous things for various Ferraris, the Corvette ZR1 http://www.autoblog.com/2009/05/11/review-2009-chevrolet-corvette-zr1-goes-to-hell-and-back/ and the Cadillac CTS-V http://www.autoblog.com/2009/06/03/review-2009-cadillac-cts-v-supercar-performance-everyday-driv/. 

A big thumbs up to the GM engineers that originally developed these continuously variable dampers back in the 1990s. 

Embedded Link

2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 vs 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 – On Track – Automobile Magazine
The fight for pony-car supremacy has been raging for decades. Chevrolet Camaro versus Ford Mustang is a duel without a definitive ending. Read on to learn more about the 2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and …

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+Automobile Magazine Pits the 2013 +Ford Motor Company Shelby GT500 against the…

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4305 days ago)

+Automobile Magazine Pits the 2013 +Ford Motor Company Shelby GT500 against the 2012 +Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 at Milan Dragway. Plenty of smoke, shredded tires and thrust ensue. 

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2012 Chevy Camaro ZL1 vs 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 – At The Strip – Automobile Magazine
Ford and Chevy enthusiasts have long built up tension by trying to settle which car company is king at the drag strip. Find out which high-power pony car, the 2012 Chevy Camaro ZL1 or 2013 Ford Shelby…

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