Onix: Not the Typical Pokemon

I don't like French things. I think Le Mans and pastries are the only two good things to come from France, and seeing as we have an ALMS series and America is a bunch of fatties I suppose these influences would suffice.

So it's not often I write about the French, or even bat an eye at anything they've done. I hear that the Veyron SS reclaimed the production top speed record and my response is a resounding, "The space shuttle orbits at 18,000 mph." To you, the reader, it means when I mention the French it's because they've done something wrong, or if they did something right, you should sit up and take notice.

Puegot made a super car. Not sure which way this article is going, right or wrong? Have a look:
Properly bonkers. That's the only way I can describe the looks of this car. It can go like a snail but if you looked like that I don't know that anyone would complain about gathering a few extra glances before speeding (crawling?) away.

You can read more about it here: http://www.topgear.com/uk/photos/peugeot-onyx-supercar-2012-10-12


Seriously, read that article. This car is mad in the most righteous sense, and considering Peugot's recent departure from motorsport resulting in this annoying Audi/Toyota battle, we need them back more than ever and this could very well be the ticket. My god. Did I just ask for the French to come back? These truly are desperate times.

Bahrain: Audi takes title

With that little scare at Sao Paulo Audi managed a 1-2 victory at Bahrain yesterday.

The Krauts had Fassler in 1st and McNish in second, naturally thanks to the e-tron technology.




In other news sorry I haven't been around, I had a conference for ASME this weekend and I was pretty busy with that. Good news is I'm now a better leader for it and I got to see Embry Riddle, which was pretty cool.



I'll be back after this week (I have a few exams) with more updates from the automotive world.

Peace out!

Automatic Door Locks

We all have a car, or have at least been in a car, where when you hit a certain speed, generally 10-15 mph, the doors automatically lock. But why is that?

The claimed reason is "safety"citing that it's to prevent opening the doors while the car is in motion at higher speeds. But we all know that's bologna because we all have that friend who thinks it's funny to open the doors at 50 mph, and if you don't know which of your friends that is, then stop opening my car doors, you twat.

"Yeah, but what about child locks? That works!" To which I answer, yes, they do, they can also be turned off by opening the rear doors and flipping a little switch.... And to add to the woes they're the opposite of safe, in the event of a crash having the doors automatically locked was such a hastle for EMTs that the US had to instill a law saying that in the event of a crash the computers had to unlock all of the doors. SO WHY DO THEY EVEN EXIST?

You might be asking why I'm ranting (Hey, I'm not ranting) about the locking mechanisms on car doors. I'm not, I have a point and here it is:

It's for hobos. Or shady invididuals in general. Think about when you were a kid and automatic doors and electronic locks weren't a standard feature, driving through a "rough area" your parents would tell you to lock your door. You asked why, they said because they said so, and you did what you were told, only to put two and two together a few years later. Well these automatic doors take all of the hastle  and hasty, awkward reach-over-to-the-locks-so-no-hobo-sees-you-through-your-window locking motion away.

And so we pay $2000 for automatic doors, instead of giving the homeless guy selling newspapers one dollar.

Toyota Wins at Sao Paulo

Yesterday was a sad day indeed, Audi, still in first with 26 points though, lost their first race this season to the ever-getting-better-er Toyota Denso team.

The Prius managed a first place win at the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo with a nearly 10 second gap! At Le Mans the worried Audi before having two fatal crashes, at Silverstone they scared Audi with a short gappped win, and at Sao Paulo they beat Audi. There's ordinarily a learning curve to racing, but after a decade out of racing, the third race of their newly ordained career and Toyota has already found their niche.


Well done to the men from Japan, but we'll see what happens in Bahrain.

Audi Sports Updates!

1. 6 Hours of Spa was last saturday and Audi did it again! The boys pulled off a 1-3 victory with           Toyota in the middle at the #2 spot.

2. It appears that the ALMS and Grand-AM series might perform a merger. This can be pretty exciting if it happens, it will make American racing championships a lot more desirable to more manufacturers, both domestic and abroad, because it will give more research opportunities. After all, most companies race to breed better machines.

3. An A5 in the Superstars Touring Championship caught fire!

No big deal

4. A new R8 is imminent! Audi released a new video with some of its details. The new R8 production car has rounded(er) tail lights and head lamps as well as a new badge displaying the Audi Sport red tag. Mechanically it has an all new double-clutch DSG 'box that sheds .2 seconds off of the 0-60 time (down to 3.6) and is mounted lower for better center of gravity.

Credit: http://fourtitude.com/

Audi in F1 (part 2)

F1 is a sport designed specifically by rich, posh gentlemen, for rich, posh gentlemen. It's a rich man's sport, designed to go faster and harder and push the limits of what we're capable of building under a certain set of rules.

Don't be lulled or fooled, this is not a sport that breeds a message "to the people". Quite the opposite. The two best things we've gotten out of F1 research is hybrid systems and variable timing. The hybrid system barely counts because while they used KERS to produce acceleration through the corners, we got an electric motor to keep the engine idling, not to mention it went in to production cars a decade after F1 adopted the practice. It is only now that we see electric motors being used in this way on production cars, and the ones I speak of, e-tron and 918 spyder, are far out of anyone's price range.

So what do I think of Audi stepping in to F1? Cultural suicide. This is a company bred in sport, literally pouring money in to destroyed cars and drivers simply to build a better car for the average customer, entering F1 is the opposite of this.

100 years for 100 miles of battery charge. Yay F1?

Quattro, FSI, TDI, manufacturing innovations, LED lighting, and now the e-tron and even the cameras that work as mirrors. All tech developed through Audi Sport that hit "shelves" within a couple of years of their testing on the track. Innovations that have broken records, taken trophies, and lasted decades in the form of "your families 20 year old sedan". All to be thrown away, cast in to the shadows, and for what? A running against Ferrari?

Please. Let Lamborghini take care of that, in the production race.

Video Evo Crash: Pikes Peak

Two days ago at this years Pikes Peak Hill Climb in Colorado a pretty terrifying crash took place:

You have insurance, right?

#463 2003 Mitsubishi Evo IX of Jeremy Foley went sliding off of the a corner aptly named "Devils Playground" almost literally flying off of the track.

He and his copilot turned out alright, sustaining only minor injuries after going to the hospital, but now have the two of them got a hell of a story to tell people at parties.

TopGear: http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/pikes-peak-crash-jeremy-foley-2012-08-13

Audi in F1 (part 1)

Note: this article is a two part column, the next portion is soon to come!

As I mentioned in my last post Audi's new head of R&D, Wolfgang Durheimer, has proclaimed it might be a good idea for Audi to make a move in to F1 sometime in the near future. Of course, he firmly believes Audi's first goal should be to pummel Porsche's 16-win-record at Le Mans -- sorry, Stutgart -- but should this be too idealistic, Volkswagen Auto Grop should keep their minds open.

I'm sorry but I whole heartedly disagree. The argument Durheimer presents is that Audi is a company that has made progress through domination and leaving, a real 'slash and burn agriculture' approach to racing. 

See it all started with the "Type C". This was the first race car of Auto Union, the company that would later be renamed "Audi". This is the project that Ferdinand Porsche really got started on making some hot racers. This car did normal comeptitions, grand prix races, nothing special. But it set a mile stone for Auto Union/Audi: Engine design. It was one of few V6 racers at the time, and it did spectacularly.

The four rings represent the four companies of Auto Union. Or the olympics, whatever you want to believe.

Now fast forward to the 1980's. The Audi Quattro has been developed and sent out in to rally racing, again, nothing but defeat and domination, of course in Audi's favor. But of course, the ever flopping brand grew bored of this sideways sport and in the 90's moved in to touring, specifically, DTM. By now Quattro drive had been confirmed as, how should I say this?: The Badass of Drivetrains. Winning championships accross Europe's different touring championships Audi grew bored, yet again. This time they set their eyes on FIA sanctioned races -- endurance races.

And here we are folks. Thirteen years of racing resulting in eleven wins at Le Mans, an unheard of ratio of wins/attempts.

Stay tuned for the next entry outlining my opinion of Audi's attempts in F1!

Audi's New Lineup

Recently there has been an exec change up within VWAG. Wolfgang Durheimer, an old executive at Porsche and current head of Bentley and Bugatti is making a leap of faith in to the R&D of Audi.

Now while no Lucious Fox, the man does have aspirations for his new found home-company:

          “Magazines are always comparing Volkswagen Group cars with each other, so why shouldn’t we compare our race cars within the same group? Competition is good for Volkswagen and it will not be a straightforward fight anyway, because there will be a technology battle going on too. Porsche will be racing using a petrol engine, Audi will be using diesel power.”

He's also hinted that he might be interested in pushing Audi towards F1 (my next post I'll talk about this further, my own opinion of course) and out of WEC. With Dr. Wolfgang Ulrich nearing retirement, Durheimer might just achieve this wanton path.

Dr. Ulrich has been very adamant and outspoken against Audi ever stepping foot in to F1 however Durheimer's argument is that Audi is a company built on dominating a sport and moving on, whether it be rally, touring, endurance, or even, yes, the dreaded Forumla 1.

Who needs SWAG when you have VWAG?

There's an up side though, Durheimer wants Audi to finish competing in WEC, and by finish, they mean break Porsche's record of 16 Le Mans titles; let's put it this way, Audi hold's 11 titles, and many, many more years of future endeavors.

Fourtitude article: 

http://fourtitude.com/news/motorsport_news_6/audis-future-at-le-mans-bright-according-to-vag-motorsport-boss-durheimer/

No More Trig!

Hey all, Sorry I haven't been posting much, I was finishing up my trig class at IRSC. Now that my summer classes are over I'm back to blogging and working.


Expect a post about once a week!


For your visiting and sticking around despite my laziness here's a funny photo for you:

Anyone who's been on imgur has probably seen this 20 times. Anyone else, I made this photo. Me.

My View on Le Mans 2012Let's be

The track, barren. Tire smoke, cleared. Pits, empty.

This years Le Mans 24 Hours was unprecedented with two huge records being set.

 The first is obvious, for the first time in 80 runs of this race a hybrid car won, the Audi R18 e-tron. In competition was the Toyota TS030 (LMP1 class) which suffered some unfortunate turns of events. The first car was a wash, a few hours in to the race it had a massive crash with a Ferrari 458 (GTE class) that destroyed the car, even it's driver, Anthony Davidson, came out injured. A fractured spine sent him in to the hospital and ended the teams run in Le Mans. The second TS030 suffered some damage in touching with another car and never was in full functioning order, it's run ended about halfway through the race.

Let's be honest, these were the only ones we cared about.

The second record set was by the DeltaWing. This amazing and marvelous machine set insane lap times considering is potentially a motor driven tricycle with a batman theme. Something sold in the "Hell" department at Toys R' Us. The car "competed" by itself in its own class established specifically for it. The car acted as a super expensive experiment for Nissan and for the automotive world. They proved that a car can turn on a pivot, it can consume less, weigh less, do everything less and even come out on top.

Except for when the TS030 clipped it and ruined it's rear suspension.



Damn Toyota.



Below is some links for everyone to read and a really interesting video from Baretzky, the inventor of the reigning engines for Audi Sport.

Baretzky Video:  http://tiny.cc/1s7kgw

TS030 Video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8jJB6viADM

DeltaWing Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJAiZVuC3YI

Le Mans stats: http://www.lemanslive.com/Lemanslive/Evenements/2012-Le-Mans-24-Hours/Live

Le Mans 24 Hours Update

So far the big news is that the two Toyota TS030's have been knocked out, Audi is holding a strong 1-2-3-4 lead in the LMP1 class.

The DeltaWing met some trouble when it collided with a TS030 but showed considerable strength through the race.

Coming in to hour 16 here of the race it looks like a summed up win for Audi, sort of boring really with no competition. However some excitement from the GTE class where the two Corvettes are fighting for a pole position against Porsche 911s, Aston Martin, and Ferrari 458's.

Updates tomorrow once the race ends!

DTM: Audi's Comeback?

So far this season Audi has been doing terribly in DTM. Up against the newly re-entered BMW M3 and the Mercedes AMG, Audi's A5 has been struggling for the last few races, but with today being the day of the Speilberg race this week has been practice laps and Qualifying.

For the first time in the 2012 season Audi placed first in all practice laps and even qualifying!

As of right now the point standings are:
Mercedes 68
BMW 43
Audi 35

Hope all goes well, I'll have updates within the next few days, and don't forget about the 16th! (Hint: It's Le Mans)


See ya round!


Picture: http://www.ausmotive.com/images2011/Audi-A5-DTM-17.jpg

Carroll Shelby Dead: Age 89

It is a sad time indeed. The legendary Carroll Shelby has passed at age 89 of pneumonia.


A true innovator and pioneer, he lives on in his cars and as an inspiration to many.


Over the years this mighty giant went from racing in to production. After a heart problem he was born with stripped him of his track suit, he decided he would design cars others could use. Among his mighty and beautiful creations were the Shelby Cobra, the Viper, as well as the GT40.

When Ford and Ferrari were working on a car together and Ferrari pulled out, Shelby stepped in to help finish the revolutionary race car, the Ford GT40, which would go on to steal the Le Mans title away from Ferrari - for four consecutive years.




Rest in peace, Texas' Giant.







For an even better telling of this great Hero's story go to: http://www.topgear.com/uk/photos/carroll-shelby-2012-05-04

College Engineering Advice

First thing to know is: I'm studying Mechanical Engineering. Currently a sophomore I've had a bit of experience and so I compiled a small list of ideas for future students. (Also, I'm an ASME Officer, jus' sayin')

Some high school students ask me questions about classes and there are a few select rules that I've ended up telling most of them, so here goes:

1. Screw AP

     Dual Enrollment is much more worthwhile. You are guaranteed the credit, you can build your GPA early on and DE classes are generally easier than AP.

2. Take AP

     I know, I know, I'm contradicting myself. But listen, Dual Enroll in classes that don't matter to your major. So say you're doing engineering, too. Dual enroll English and social studies, and arts or humanities studies as well. Things like calculus, chemistry, physics, statistics, etc... you should AP. The reason is even if you don't pass the AP you'll at least learn a lot more in AP for when you take classes in college, plus it serves as good practice. So mess up as much as you want and your college GPA isn't sacrificed for your mistakes.

3. Learn to Study

     I mean this one. Some people study differently; flashcards, basic notes, practice problems, hell some people don't need to study. Learn where to study, some people can do it around friends in their room, some people need the quiet solitude of library stacks. If you're like me, you prefer to be outside in the sun by water. It's nice. Point is, get comfortable, and get studied!

4. Accept Advice and Criticism

     Learn to accept that sometimes a separate point of view can be right. Sometimes you'll spend an hour on a single problem and get no where near right, a friend can offer a simple concept or idea that will instantly get it right. If you're too prideful to accept help, get over it. You'll never work alone as an engineer, and if you can't accept help from a friend, you'll be doomed for the rest of your career.

I hope this helps a bit, and no worries, I'll be offering more tips and advice through my semesters as an engineering student alongside my assessment of cars.

See ya guys!

6 Hrs of Spa

On Board Telemetry of the e-tron from Spa

This past week Audi returned triumphant from their WEC race at Spa. The 6 hour long venture ended in a 1-2-3-4 place win for Team Joest, lead by one of their new super weapons, the R18 e-tron quattro.
This new car uses a hybrid system to recover energy from the brakes while slowing through corners, and then pushes that power to electric motors for cornering through, and out once power is applied at the apex. This gives the car more grip and a higher linear velocity when coming out.

In all this new fangled car should be ripe by Le Mans; a lot of data was taken and experience learned for tweaks on the new cars. Afterall, the Delta Wing and TS030 are waiting to challenge Audi's authority.

Here's a video from onboard the car with it's telemetry at Spa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OREUhlcK28


See you all around the corner!

Truth in 24 II

It is no secret that I'm an Audi fanatic. My blog is mostly going to be about German cars, I          drive a Volkswagen, and I'm even taking German 101 this coming fall.


It is also no secret that Audi dominates at 24 Hours of Le Mans, and has so for the last ten years. This year will be no different, in fact it'll be easier. Their main competition, Peugeot, has dropped out of the race. They have also left manufacturer racing entirely because they can no longer afford the venture.


So who will be left to stand between Audi and the title? This year it will be Nissan with the Delta Wing and Toyota with the TS030. Not to mention that Audi themselves have a brand new weapon, the R18 e-tron.

These two cars thrown in against Audi will make for an exciting race, invariably worthy of a movie no doubt?


See three years ago, when Peugeot had a car that was significantly faster than the old R15, a documentary of Audi's race season was made, "Truth in 24", and this year they will be making another one of these documentaries.


If you are a fan of Audi, racing, Le Mans, or any sort of combinations of the three, I suggest you watch it. It is 90 minutes of pure adrenaline, watching one of the best teams and one of the best cars attack Sebring, Monza, and Le Mans.


Remember, Le Mans is on June 16th, so stay tuned to hear more about the race and Audi!


Go Team Joest!




Audi USA: http://progress.audiusa.com/
Audi Sport: http://www.audiusa.com/us/brand/en/exp/motorsport.html?csref=inid_motorsport
Le Mans: http://www.lemans.org/en/
Peugeot: http://www.peugeot.com/en.aspx
Nissan Delta Wing: http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/nissan-deltawing-launch-le-mans-2012-03-13
Toyota: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_TS030_Hybrid

Working on Blog HTML and CSS

Finals and Such

Sorry I haven't been posting as much of late all, I have finals this week so I've been studying a ton. I get home Friday [moving out of my dorm :( ] and the posts will get regular. I'm also planning on fixing up the look of the blog, right now it's just sort of standard and default.


More posts will come! I promise!






For now here's a dog doing science.

Call of Duty: MW3

Now I know, MW3 has been out for around 6 months, so this review is a bit late, but it's relevant for me, sort of.

See I played all of the Modern Warfare series, COD4 and MW2 were spectacular, and MW3's campaign did NOT disappoint! Not. One. Bit. The campaign was epic and fun with the world's greats ending thus proving that Price is the ultimate bad ass.

Screamed while crying, "Nearly Everyone I Love Dies!"

Once finishing the campaign I moved to online multiplayer: and boy was I surprised. It's not fun. And I don't mean that in a way that says it sucks, it doesn't, in fact with the exception of the spawning system, it, too, is spectacular. What I mean is historically I have no problem maintaining 2.5+ KDRs in Call of Duty, but in MW3, the best I can get is about 1.3

The reason? The multiplayer is fair. It's a lot more balanced than any other COD ever made, and if you are a true COD fan I suggest you get this game. In the next post I'll be discussing the future of COD and what it could possibly mean, and trust me, it's not what you think it will be.

Take if from someone who has wasted a lot of college nights playing FPS games, this one is a real doosie.

RabbiReview's Decision: MW3 is worth the money, but if you're like me online play will become boring very quickly.

COD Site: http://callofduty.com/

Parallax Boads vs. Arduino

Today was my EGN 1007 competition: The Great Naval Orange Race

The point is to design an autonomous boat, with it's own on-board propulsion system not containing any sort of combustion, and get it to go all the way around the reflecting pond at my school, whilst carrying a naval orange.

Orange + Pond = Engineering

One of the problems is that the pond is a perfect semi-circle, and steering is difficult work. One solution was to use our Parallax boards from last semester, utilizing Arduino programing in conjunction with an IR sensor to "see" the wall of the pond and follow it. Here's the problem: parallax sucks. The boards fry, the sensors are iffy, the servos twitch. After working on a Parallax robot for a semester I can say first hand that they hardware is terrible and can't follow its software very well. A single change in the frequency output, by a mere .001% for the IR sensor, will literally send your robot spiraling off of a 3 foot high table and in to a million pieces at 9.8 m/s^2.

Arduino. Ahhhhhhh, Arudino, My true love. You are the original, the mighty, the beautifully simple. The programing was written by Arduino (thus the name?) and their hardware, while about 10% more expensive than Parallax, actually works. If my robot doesn't go in to kamikaze mode while I'm testing a program to get it to see black lines, it's worth it.

RabbiReview's Decision: Spend the extra for Arduino, when you don't buy three of every fried, broken part, you'll be thankful.

(Here are videos of some past races, I took a lot of footage of my boat (Placed 13th out of 270) and I'll be uploading it once finals are over next week. Enjoy!)

Videos of Past Races: http://tinyurl.com/7xmpj89

Arduino: http://www.arduino.cc/

Parallax: http://www.parallax.com/

Monster Energy

Staying up late? 

Drinking heavily?

 Doing wild and crazy things? 

It's time for a Monster.

This particular energy supplement is delicious and holds high value in college, helping to push through a hard study night and down a large quantity of alcohol. At 16 oz. it will certainly "Unleash the Beast", but with such great benefits what are its downfalls?

This is certainly an..... up-fall?

I have a friend who drinks these religiously, he even has a "Monster Wall" in a cubby over his bed, it is 16 cans across and 3 high. Recently his mom and dad told him they were worried about this obsession he holds because recently a few teenagers have died drinking just two of these in succession. This, understandably, freaked my friend out a bit and he has since began to ween off of the substance. I say ween for a good reason: He found he went through withdraw. 

Unhealthy side effects do await those that drink this delicious, bubbly elixir, so I would suggest drinking in moderation. It is delicious, relatively cheap and certainly draws benefits, just mind your manners when it comes to the B12 and caffeine that are entering your body.

Regards, RabbiReview

Picture via: http://www.udubstep.com/professor-green-monster-feat-example-camo-krooked-remix/

http://www.monsterenergy.com/

Just a Reminder

As a side note, I want to be clear that this is an unofficial blog discussing my opinion on things.

This blog is merely written and run by an anonymous person who has wishes to review and maintain this blog.

This blog is not affiliated with any particular group.

Welcome!

Welcome to The Jew's Reviews! Let me give you a brief synopsis of what this blog will entail from here on out:

A basic overview of anything this particular Jew finds to be cool, awesome, sexy, distasteful, wasteful, or otherwise interesting. All of these things will be reviewed by a College Jew, so all things reviewed will be relevant to College Students, Jewish Students, or, hell, just about anybody.

No this blog is not religious at all, the name was just sorta catchy and it fits my demographic. :p