Author: Rick Page 320 of 326

Veyron

On Wed September 3, 2003

Above is a publicity photo of the soon to be produced Bugatti Veyron 16·4. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if you haven’t heard of the Bugatti marque. They were a premier manufacturer in the very early days of automobiles, but fell out of the limelight by the middle of the last century. I was surprised to learn Volkswagen bought the rights to the Bugatti name some years ago. It looks as if they’re going to finally do something with it … and this effort is certainly going to get some attention.

Unwilling to miss any chance to link the new car to Bugatti’s racing heritage, the Veyron is named after Pierre Veyron, a Bugatti driver of some repute from the 1930s. The Veyron doesn’t just talk the talk however, this beast is powered by a sixteen cylinder, eight litre engine. Yes, it’s turbo charged, but four turbochargers divide the work. The output measures 1001 horsepower. Impressive. An all-wheel drive system uses all four wheels to put the power to the road.

Bugatti claims the car’s top speed is 406 km/h and they guarantee it. A zero to 100 km/h timing seems to be too pedestrian for this beast so instead they offer a zero to 290 km/h time of just fourteen seconds.

If you want one, you’d better quickly pony up a million American dollars. They’re only going to make a few dozen per year, and limit total production to 300 cars. Call me crazy, but I don’t think they need to limit production to maintain the car’s exclusivity.

Veyron photo courtesy Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S

Skyward

by Rick

On Wed September 3, 2003

In me, transportation

Gord completes hit pre-flight walk-around of the Cessna 172 Skyhawk, under clear and wind-free skies.

Yesterday was flight day! I arrived at Carp Airport (CYRP) only a few minutes early to find Gord was already there and waiting, but our plane was not there! Someone else had it on a flight, but it was back ten or fifteen minutes later. Gord told me he’d planned to have his pre-flight completed before I arrived, but I’m glad that didn’t happen because it gave me a chance to have a look at the aircraft too. The last time I was in a light plane was when our grade eleven geography class took an aerial tour so we could see larger scale geographic features. Of course, it was more a fun ride than anything. Now, I was more interested in watching the instruments and listening to the radio chatter.

Pre-flight check of the control surfaces. Flaps and elevators down.

We all climbed aboard and the instructor (who was more than ten years younger than me) went over how this aircraft is different than the smaller planes Gord is used to, even down to how the 172 sits with its nose higher because of its more rearward centre of gravity with a back-seat passenger. That was me, of course.

It’s no wonder the headphones pilots wear are so large and bulky. Those light planes are really noisy and the headphones seal out a lot of the noise. We taxied and took off. I felt immediately anxious because light planes don’t have nearly the wing area of larger passenger jets. There’s a lot of buffeting and despite the perfect conditions and lack of wind, the plane was tossed a bit while still near the ground. After climbing to 2000 feet, we banked to the left, and since I was sitting in the left seat, looking down out of the window treated me to an unimpeded view straight down. Yea, that gave me further anxiety. The funny thing was however, once we came out of the turn, I felt no more anxiety.

Final approach on runway ten. Picture perfect except for the bug-spatter on the canopy.

Differences in aircraft performance are easy to adapt to in the air because the pilot has plenty of time. When taking off and landing however, things are a different matter entirely. Since this lesson was to have Gord get used to a larger plane, the only flying we did was to circle the field and land again. We’d take off, circle, land, then take off again without even slowing down. This is called a “touch and go,” which I’m pleased to say I knew from my flight simulator experience. It was very interesting to see an approach and landing in real life and in many ways I can imagine it’s easier in a real plane than in a computer simulation because you have depth perfection to judge distances, and because you’re getting feedback from the aircraft in the controls so you can tell more of what’s going on. Of course I don’t mean to say flying is easy … not by a long shot, despite Gord making it look so easy.

The Ottawa River and the Gatineau Hills bracket an area northwest of Aylmer, Québec.

After the instructor was satisfied with Gord’s proficiency, he suggested we land and call it a day. Gord asked if we could just drop him off and go for a short flight of our own. He readily agreed so we flew up the Ottawa river around Dunrobin and Constance Bay. Gord and I know some people living out that way so we had a look at their houses, from above.

The differences I noticed between being a passenger in a light plane and flying one in a computer simulation were of course many. The blinding power of the sun is a big one. Identifying aircraft at a distance is very easy when the simulator labels them with bright red text! In the real world, radio chatter is sometimes incomprehensible with static and distortion, leaving you to wonder if what was said was important or not. Of course the sensory experience of being tossed around and feeling the aircraft react to the controls is a wonderful experience even as a passenger.

Yea, given the time and the money, I’d love to learn to fly.

Powerless

by Rick

On Fri August 15, 2003

In consequences, me

Yesterday I made plans to go see S.W.A.T. with Jason and his girlfriend, Helene. We went during the late afternoon to take advantage of the matinée prices. A simple enough plan, I thought. But no, the largest blackout in North American history has to come along and spoil it. The previews hadn’t even finished when the presentation stopped and the emergency lights clicked on. We thought it’d be back in a few moments so we sat patiently. An obviously harried usher came in and told us things would be back in a few moments after the power returned. He sounded completely distracted and perhaps a little afraid to give us this news, which I found very curious. Ten minutes later another usher told us the power was out and they had no idea when it would be back. The emergency lighting would only last for another ten minutes so we could all go out to the lobby and get vouchers for a free movie. We got vouchers and took off.

I think these two people had the best idea on how to pass the time without electricity … at least while the sun was up. There’s nothing like a good book and a comfy chair to while away the hours!

After we got to the car and turned the radio on, we began to realize the scope of the outage. The announcer mentioned Toronto was out, and even New York State and New Jersey were without power. The announcer also said since the whole city was out, traffic for the quickly approaching rush our would be nuts with all the stop lights non-functional. I suggested we go to my place and wait out the traffic because I was much closer to the theatre. Helene suggested taking the Queensway (the highway running through the middle of the city) because there are no traffic lights to slow us down. Almost as if in answer, the announcer suggested many figured the Queensway would be faster because of its lack of traffic lights, and the Queensway was already jammed. Instead we took the 417 east hoping to sneak around south rather than through the city.

The first part of our journey was really nasty. Bumper to bumper, inching along, it seemed we’d be in transit for an hour. Happily, we did select a good route and things started moving along quite nicely. We were at my place within a half-hour. Granted, the trip would’ve taken less than half the time under normal circumstances. Without power, my place was pretty hot but we made do. Since I had no battery operated radio, we were completely cut off from what was going on. Jason commented on this more than once and I agreed. After it started getting dark, the temperature came down nicely. I was wondering if this outage would be like the other huge black out that struck the north-east in 1977. I remember seeing archival news reports detailing the looting and rioting. Seeing the darkness approaching, I was hoping for the best, but feared the worst.

A police car rounds the corner in this eight second exposure. Although it looks almost light, it was nearly dark at this point.

Almost as if in answer, the police sirens started. Surprisingly, a police car stopped at the mini-mall across the street from my building. We went out on the balcony and had a look. There was a city bus stopped with its interior lights flashing like a disco. It appeared empty … and the people who were in it seemed to have left to stand around the mini-mall. We figured the bus broke down or something because even in the mini-mall merchants wildest dreams, I don’t think they’ve ever had seventy-five people milling around in front of the six stores there. Either someone disabled the bus, or they were causing trouble after leaving the bus. Regardless, two more police cars showed up. I’d love to tell you what happened, but we never did find out. The people trickled away, the police left, and that was that.

Jason counts out the cash after he lands on Boardwalk.

Once the darkness struck full-force, it was time to break out the candles. With no TV and no radio to entertain us, we reviewed my board games and partook in a cut-throat game of Monopoly. At a far more sedate pace than the speed-games I’ve played in high-school, we played and had a great time. The most interesting thing about this match was the tide of the game changed many times. Despite being in a very good position early in the game, having three sets of properties with two developed to hotel-status, I was the first person out of the game. At that point, the odds were with Jason as he had eight hotels on the board versus Helene’s only houses on Boardwalk and Park Place. Sure he was hurting when he landed on them, but she landed on his properties more often and he eventually won. Not having played Monopoly in at least a decade, I was surprised at how much fun it was. I want to play again!

Just after midnight, they decided to head home and just before they left we noticed a few buildings in the distance had power judging by the lights within. Interestingly enough, those lights were back out within a half hour. I called Jason’s place hoping to leave a message telling him so, but his power was still out so his answering machine wasn’t functioning. He called me back later thinking something happened to me, but I happily reported everything was fine. I asked what the status of the world was, since I figured they surely would have clicked on the radio during their drive home. He was flabbergasted telling me they’d realized they didn’t check the news only after they got home!

Look at Mr. Showoff with the only light in the whole building. Why he felt the need to light his balcony is anyone’s guess!

The power came on during the early morning while I was sleeping. The fire alarm bleeps once when power returns and while I recall hearing it, I was even more pleased to feel the breeze created by the fan I’m pointed at my bed before going to sleep. To my great disappointment, the power was off again by the time I woke up. It returned at 2pm but the news reports say only about ¾ of the electricity required is being delivered to our area so rotating black-outs will be needed until full generating potential is realized tomorrow or Sunday. It’s past 10pm now and I’ve still got power so I remain hopeful. I’m still pragmatic enough to save this file often as I type, however!

I talked to my mother today and was surprised to learn her power went out today for the first time at 6:30pm as part of the rotating black-outs in her area. It was great to see the riots of former blackouts were not repeated this time around. Here in Ottawa, there were twenty reported cases of looting, and two deaths attributed to the outage. One was a person hit by a car, and the other was a person killed in a fire. Amusingly, regular citizens did their part by taking on the role of traffic cop in busy intersections during rush hour all over the affected area. Toronto seems to have the most closet traffic cops as most intersections in the downtown core were adopted and managed much better than they would’ve been had they fallen to four-way stop status.

If anything about the black-out pissed me off, it was how quickly the blame started flying. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said the problem started in Canada and it was obvious to anyone who could see the readouts from the system. Despite it being so obvious, Michehl Gent, president of the North American Electric Reliability Council, said the outage definitely didn’t start here. The blame wasn’t limited to the Americans, however. Toronto mayor Mel Lastman said the problem started in New York State. No matter where the problem started, the system needs modification so one problem doesn’t cascade through eight states and one province! Certainly we need to figure out what happened, but not to place blame.

We’ve been asked to conserve electricity so all I’ve got running is the refrigerator (though I think the stuff in the freezer is ruined), the TV, a fan, and my computer. As much as I’d like to get out for some ice cream and milk, I expect the stores to be completely nuts for at least a few days so I’m going to sit tight for as long as I can. I figure the milk left in the stores will be questionable anyway.

Release dates around the world

by Rick

On Mon June 30, 2003

In movies

We’re starting to get a taste of our own medicine here in North America.

Traditionally, films are released here first and then slowly trickle their way across the world. Rebecca tells me films usually open in Japan six months after I’ve already seen them. I’ve seen ads for 28 Days Later… and Johnny English on television recently and in both cases I thought they’d both been out for some time. It turns out they’re both new to North America, but were released elsewhere (in dozens of countries) between three and six months ago. They’re both U.K. productions so perhaps that’s the reason.

Have I just not noticed this happening in the past?

Poor illiterate Bob

by Rick

On Mon June 30, 2003

In misuse, peeve

A grammar/punctuation rant follows. You’ve been warned!

We’ve got a new radio station in town and they’re advertising all over the place. I’ve found the campaign very amusing because they’ve either been preparing the ad copy themselves, or they’ve hired a cut-rate ad-agency. The most obvious indicator of difficulty is they don’t understand when to use an apostrophe, and when not to. The ads describe the music they play as being from the “80’s and 90’s and whatever.” Last I heard, the apostrophe indicates missing letters (as in a contraction), or possession. Neither is the case here. If anything, ’80s and ’90s is correct because the first two digits of the years were omitted.

On their website, they further show their misunderstanding of the apostrophe. Following a link leading to an open letter to everyone with the name Bob opens a pop-up window displaying a letter. The problem is revealed in the title: “An Open Letter to all BOB’s.” Even ignoring the goofed up capitalisation of the first letters of each word, and the capitalization of all of the letters in Bob, there’s no way in hell there should be an apostrophe. They mean more than one Bob, not something belonging to a single Bob, nor do they mean “Bob is” or “Bob has.” Every time they refer to more than one person named Bob, they use an apostrophe. Interestingly enough, the open letter ends with a postscript: “We’ll also give you the shirts off our backs!” Given their treatment of more than one Bob, more than one shirt and more than one back should also incorrectly get an apostrophe. Strangely, the link to the open letter correctly leaves the apostrophe out of the plural of Bob.

I find misuse of the apostrophe when adding an ‘s’ to make a word plural is extremely annoying because the misuse is so widespread, but this is worse because the usage is inconsistent.

Don’t get me started on how “80’s… 90’s… & Whatever” doesn’t even make complete sense because you’re specifying two particular decades, then including all the others with the very last word. If you’re going to do that, you need not specify any decades to begin with. The ellipses and ampersand are misused in the slogan as well.

If their programming and on-air talent are as big a disaster as their ad copy, I won’t have to worry about seeing this advertising eyesore for very long.