A peek into the mind of a sleep deprived software developer, husband, dad and gamer.
Similar to my previous music log entry, the two songs I have lined up today are punk rock covers of popular hit songs.
Let's start off with “Hello” by Dayseeker. As you can probably tell by the title, this is another cover of a famous song from Adele. I've heard a number of covers for this song, including one from Lukas Rossi and another from Coheed and Cambria. As far as rock covers go though, this might be the best one.
While trying to take a nap last Sunday afternoon, my mind wandered off to a scene in Cars 1 where Lightning McQueen was struggling to pull Bessie. I mean sure, Bessie is a huge, heavy, road paving machine. But isn't Lightning McQueen supposed to be a high powered race car? If so, why was he struggling to pull Bessie? Where did all his horsepower go? The answer I came up with (if true) helped me better understand the differences between horsepower and torque.
I had never driven anything powered by a Wankel, and the contrast of the RX-7 compared to everything with wheels I had experienced was stark, and noticeable immediately. The feedback normally received from a piston engine is not felt, due to the fact that there is no more conversion from vertical to rotational motion, a rotary engine (as implied by the name) involves no vertical momentum. It's not that the engine refuses to communicate with you, it's just speaking an entirely different language. The whiny exhaust note has an odd property to it that can be heard from no other source. It conjures up images of the mysterious, angry pair of triangles whirling about in their cage. Purely imaginary, of course.
Because the Wankel is so smooth, I found myself wondering why I should shift up. A piston engine makes you anxious when you push it close to the redline. Most send the driver a variety of auditory and tactile messages indicating that they must either shift up, or face a molten tie rod to the head. The RX-7, however, gives no such indication. When close to the redline, one hears only an excited whir. The result (forgive the upcoming Disney analogy) is an almost magic carpet-like experience. It's as though the power simply materializes before you with no apparent source or sacrifice.
What a good read! I found myself hopping over to Autotrader looking for used RX-8s around my area after reading this piece. Then, reality set in and I realized that I am in no position to be owning a second car. I say second car because I'm not sure I would replace my Mazdaspeed3 with an RX-8. Hard to give up the hatch, the passing power and better gas mileage from the Speed3.
Link: Reunited with a Quaint, Wankel-Powered Friend
Tags: #Cars
I knew Kobe Bryant only as a basketball player. I remember owning a pair of his first shoes from Adidas, the Crazy 8. He was a spectacular basketball player. The only other player that came close to being considered another Michael Jordan. This article though, talks about a different side of him that I never knew existed.
Link: Kobe Bryant and the Three-Point Lesson of His Life
Failure and even scandal are a part of Kobe’s life too. Suffering is a quick litmus test of what lies underneath all of the talent. In another interview, Kobe spoke about how he found his faith after dealing with some serious allegations of sexual misconduct. He said, “You can know [that God is great] all you want, but until you have to pick up that cross that you can’t carry, and he picks it up for you, and carries you and the cross . . . then you know.”
Man that's deep. Something that you'll only hear from someone who was weighed down with a heavy burden. A heavy cross as he says.
It's Friday, so it's time for another music log. I have two songs for today that were from a “punk goes pop” playlist somewhere in Spotify.
First one is “Torn” by Hands Like Houses. This is a great cover of Natalie Imbruglia's hit song from the 90s. The way they did this cover gives it a little more weight. It sounds angrier. A more serious take on the original.
The Rockets did not play a traditional center in their victories over the Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans over the weekend despite having 7-foot reserves Tyson Chandler and Isaiah Hartenstein available. Houston became the first team to go an entire game without using a player taller than 6-foot-6 since the New York Knicks in a Jan. 31, 1963, win over the Chicago Zephyrs, according to research by the Elias Sports Bureau.
Link: Sources: Robert Covington, Clint Capela part of 4-team, 12-player deal
The link is for an article about a trade that sent Clint Capela to the Atlanta Hawks, but the quote above is the most interesting part of that article for me. I think that small ball lineups is a preview of the future of NBA basketball.
Centers playing with their back to the basket, backing down defenders is a rare sight in the NBA these days. Joel Embiid is probably the last dominant, back to the basket center the NBA has left. Most other tall centers/power forwards nowadays prefer to shoot perimeter shots anyway. Yet these same players can sometimes be too slow in defense, especially in “switch-all” defensive schemes.
Avast, an antivirus program with more than 435 million users worldwide, said it will stop collecting and selling the private web browsing histories of its users following a joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag into the sale of that data. In addition, Avast said it will completely shut down Jumpshot, the subsidiary company it used to sell this data.
They were collecting and selling browsing history data? What the hell man.
I think my old gaming PC is still running Avast antivirus. I thought they could be trusted, but I guess this is another case of, “If the service is free, you are the product” kind of thing. This is not cool. I'm going to have to go through our PCs at home to see what kind of antivirus they are running.
Link: Avast Antivirus Is Shutting Down Its Data Collection Arm, Effective Immediately
Tags: #Technology #Privacy
Stayed up to watch Cars 3, then Cars 1 with Davin last night. As is customary, Davin will line up his cars on the bed while watching the movies.
Tags: #Photos #DisneyCars
I started this experiment with the intention of better planning my leisure activities, through the process of weekly planning. Here is what I've discovered after a month of weekly planning.
Interesting read on why you should quit the news, with some history lesson thrown in as well. This one is a lengthy read (45 minutes estimate), so best to read this on your lunch break or after work.
Well, that’s easy. The goal of the news is to motivate you to keep consuming news.
This is something that I only realized the past few months when I tried decreasing my consumption of news. Now I can't stop noticing it. If you look at how they structure the presentation of news in like the morning news shows, they do it in a way to keep you hooked on news.
Same thing on news websites. They want you on their website as long as possible, nudging you to click links left and right so that you stay even longer on their site. If their job was to inform, they've done it, but do they have to try and hold my attention all day? That's the part that gets to me.