everyday

Filed in the “holy-crap” category! Google Maps with Street View.

The governing body of Formula 1 (F1), the FIA, has prescribed a roadmap for engine development in F1 that would have the teams use smaller engines running on bio-fuels in the 2010 racing season. This was decided as a result of the FIA’s decision to have the research and development of the F1 teams provide a more direct impact on the automotive industry. F1 teams have enormous development budgets, if even a small percentage of this is spent helping to increase fuel mileage, or alleviate the dependence on fossil fuels, then I am all for it.

Hopefully, this decision by the FIA will lead to some significant advancements in the automotive industry. I for one think that this is definitely the direction the FIA should be taking. In addition to these changes, I would like to see a few more changes to the rules that I think would benefit the driving public even more:

1. Decrease fuel cell size to a point where 4-5 pit stops would be required to get through a typical race with current fuel mileage ratios. This would help to increase the miles/km that the cars achieve in order to reduce the number of pit stops that a driver must make to get through a race.
2. Reinstate a number of the electronic assistance devices that have been removed from the cars. This would help the motoring public immensely by providing safer cars as a result of advancements in traction control.
3. Remove the mandate of the use of the V-8 engine configuration, but keep the displacement restrictions in place. By allowing the teams to use any engine configuration imaginable they would be using their enormous development budgets to figure out which engine they can squeeze the most power out of.
4. Allow hybrid technologies in F1 racing! Notice that I said “allow” not mandate. If an F1 team can develop a car that performs better while utilizing some hybrid technologies, then why not allow it? If they decide that storing energy from regenerative braking is worth the extra weight of a dual drive system and batteries, then why not let them do it?

Every dream that I have ever had about winning the lottery has culminated in me owning and racing in a Gran Touring racing series such as the FIA GT3 series. I have seen a number of GT races throughout the years and they are awesome! I love watching cars that, if I had enough money, I could go buy and race myself. What sets the FIA GT3 series apart from the GT races I have seen in the past is the makes and models of cars that race in the FIA GT3 series, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati and Porsche to name a few. While I have seen many of these cars in the various races I have seen, they have not been as prevalent as they are in the FIA GT3 series.

For a little FIA GT3 eye candy, check out this gallery from the Bucharest race in May 2007, courtesy of Autoblog.

I just upgraded this weblog to use WordPress 2.2. I have been rather pleased with WordPress, it is fully functional and seems very mature. The upgrade process went smoothly and I didn’t run into any problems (yet!).

via: Digg

N.Design (a site I will be frequenting from now on) has a über-cool looking OSX dock for websites. If you are a fan of the Mac, as I am, you will certainly appreciate this. If you aren’t so much a fan of the Mac, then you should at least appreciate the look and feel of this navigation bar. Web 2.0, whatever that means, is certainly producing some interesting stuff!

My digital library has quickly exceeded the storage capacity of my MacBook Pro. What does this mean, well I either have to get rid of files or move them off of my laptop. Since I have no desire to delete anything, I move them to a external USB drive. I received a nice little 160GB Western Digital Passport this past Christmas. While this works really well, I am loathe to store all of my stuff on one hard drive. I prefer to have data on a server that utilizes some sort of HDD redundancy to safeguard my data against HDD failure. To this end I am thinking about either a small desktop computer running Linux or perhaps a used Mac Mini. I will keep you informed of my eventual decision.

The 9/11 Commission suggested that the U.S. Federal Government improve it’s system for issuing secure identification documents. To that end, Congress passed a law, the REAL ID Act in 2005. This act requires the DHS to set some standards for State issued ID Cards that will supposedly make the U.S. more secure. Yeah… right…

I personally think they are going about this whole thing the wrong way. My primary objection to this is that they are proposing to have each state create a repository of personally identifiable information that will be accessible to a variety of agencies. Any system that would store personally identifiable information on all the citizens of a particular state would be in dire jeopardy of being hacked.

My solution to the problem would be to use a variety of biometric data, stored directly on the card. That way if someone wants to know if I am who I say I am, they simply ask me to submit my finger, iris, face or combination thereof to a scan. No going back to some server at the State capitol, no repository of data inviting abuse. While not completely fool proof, this system would tell the person checking identities that I truly am the person shown on the card. The only hurdle then is one of preventing forgeries. The solution to this problem is simple, but does require a central repository of data. The primary difference being that this data need not be personally identifiable. The card would simply need some super long, random string of characters that has no association to the individual in possession of the card. If a particular card’s identifier is in the database, and the person who is in possession of it has been verified by a biometric scan then it is safe to say that the person is indeed who they claim to be and that the card itself is not a forgery. Seems simple enough to me.

I am the person listed on this card (verified by biometrics) and this card is valid (verified by central repository of valid card numbers), therefore I am not a terrorist.

Perhaps there is some flaw in my logic, but I don’t think so (otherwise I wouldn’t have written this!)