Posted By RichC on July 24, 2016
It is a hot one all over the Midwestern United States this weekend … and here in Cincinnati, we’re roasting with the best of them … although I’m doing a pretty good job of staying cool.
Posted By RichC on July 24, 2016
This content is restricted.
Posted By RichC on July 23, 2016
The development of Volkswagen’s emission defeating device may have initially had the best of intentions, according to Road and Track. It started with engineers in 1999 who were working to quiet the diesel clatter on an Audi V-6 engine. They were using "Pilot Injection" to 
inject an additional amount of fuel to a cylinder when the engine was at idle to reduced the "clatter" that has plagued diesel engines since their invention. The downside was that adding fuel also increased emissions. In the VW engineering circles this was called an "Acoustic Function" and they implement it in Audi branded 3.0-liter European diesels from 2004 – 2008.
Then in 2006, Volkswagen engineers made the decision to adapt the the technology for use in their Generation 1 EA189 2.0-liter TDI engine (the TDI diesel engine at the heart of the scandal) as a way to avoid licensing SCR technology from Mercedes-Benz. The commonplace selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology uses liquid urea to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and is the norm on all larger diesels. But for VW, the bread and butter small diesels could avoid the licensing and the added cost of a urea tank and exhaust injection system by using a "Lean Trap," which traps NOx and breaks it down in a catalytic converter by cycling to a fuel-rich mode as needed. Unfortunately this also brought on another problem as the Lean Trap choice also allowed too much build up of diesel particulates in the soot filter (DPF) resulting in premature failure. Engineers decided they could use the "Acoustic Function" to correct the problem … which was in turn approved by management. As sales for these highly efficient small diesel grew in popularity, Volkswagen leaned on this treatment technic further and further.
In the early days Volkswagen engineers may have pursued the development of the "Acoustic Function" with the best of intentions, even when using it to extend the life of the diesel particulate filter. But somewhere along the line they decided to use the feature to cheat the emissions tests and continued to promote and market these small TDI "clean diesels." Oh … the $15 BILLION web they weaved … not to mention the black-eye which will haunt the company for years.
Additional reading:
Road and Track has an interesting article on the "fix" that may not really be a fix.
Posted By RichC on July 22, 2016
With a renewed interest in the upcoming iPhone7 after Apple released the new iOS10 public beta, I’m wondering what’s really the next “big” (pun intended) thing for pocketable smart devices. If it were durable and possible, I’d love having an expanding screen on my iPhone that could do double-duty as an iPad!
Posted By RichC on July 21, 2016
Brenda and I are looking forward to an upcoming trip to Minnesota to see Katelyn and Drew … especially after seeing the many summer activities they are enjoying this summer. Last week after work they even headed over to Wayzata for the evening concert, just like my mom and dad did in Sidney. Maybe it is in their blood?
I can’t wait to visit with them in person (Facetime and cellphone calls are great … but I really miss seeing them more often).
Posted By RichC on July 21, 2016
Mike Rowe brings a bit of commonsense to the nutty “mostly” media outrage about Melania Trump‘s plagiarism considering almost every politician reads someone elses’ words off a teleprompter in practically every important speech. Are we fooled they aren’t reading a speech someone else wrote anyway? Should we be outraged at every speech a politician give or for that matter every article/book being “ghostwritten” for high profile people (you would be amazed at the things my company publishes for them)?
Eileen Bayer writes…
“Mike – Could you PLEASE interject some common sense and logic into today’s plagiarism headlines??? I would LOVE to hear your take on the matter!!”
Hello Eileen – I don’t know about common sense, but here’s my analysis of the situation. (I hope to God someone hasn’t already written this.)
Regarding the charges of plagiarism, I really don’t know. All I know for sure is that Mrs. Trump is absolutely, positively guilty of standing before the country and reading words she didn’t write as if they were own. I also know that Mrs. Obama is guilty of doing the same thing. Both women – along with their husbands – have stood proudly before a national audience and pretended the words they read originated with them – knowing full well they did not.
Let’s consider for a moment, the weird reality of speechwriters in our political discourse. Why do we tolerate them? Why do we permit our leaders to pretend that someone else’s words are theirs? Moreover, why do we allow them to stand before us and act as if they’re NOT reading from a script, when we know damn well they are? Why – in this – “age of authenticity” – do we accept the artifice of a Teleprompter, and all the other pretenses of earnestness that enable candidates to present themselves as something other than who they really are?
I always thought the obvious answer was because we’re a lazy and shallow species who value style over substance. But now, it seems I was mistaken. Today, half the country has risen up in righteous indignation because the words of an anonymous speechwriter – words once read by Mrs. Obama as if they were her own – have been co-opted by another anonymous speechwriter, and given to another aspiring First Lady – who also read those same words as if they belonged to her!
Did either one of them believe what they read? Beats me. No one is talking about what was said. Only about how they said it. What we know for sure – is that neither one of them wrote the words they spoke.
The real question is, do we truly care? Personally, I do. But not as much as I care about the underlying Kabuki that now informs the whole election process.
On the other hand, the right words do matter, regardless of where they originate. I remember, in the wake of the Challenger disaster, Ronald Regan gave a truly extraordinary speech. Every sentence was brilliant, but this part was unforgettable.
“We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them this morning, as they prepared for their journey, waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.”
I was 22 at the time, and I literally cried when I heard those words. I was truly touched. Later, I learned those words had been written for Reagan by Peggy Noonan. After that, I learned Peggy Noonan had lifted those words from a poem called “High Flight,” written by an airman who died in WWII named John McGee.
Did Ronald Reagan plagiarize Peggy Noonan? Did Peggy Noonan plagiarize John McGee?
Sorry Eileen – I’m afraid the answers are beyond my pay grade. But these questions did get me thinking about my favorite speech writer – a guy named Peter who made his bones in the Johnson administration.
If you have 5 minutes to kill, I wrote a short mystery about what finally got this amazing writer fired from The White House. It’s called Rose Garden Rubbish, and while I plagiarized the title, the story is totally mine. (Mostly.)
Posted By RichC on July 20, 2016
Now that Apple’s third iOS 10 developer beta has had some time to settle, Apple has released the second iOS 10 public beta for non-developers testing the pre-release software. The latest buil…
Source: Apple releases iOS 10 public beta 2 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
Posted By RichC on July 19, 2016
This content is restricted.
Posted By RichC on July 18, 2016
Two years has passed since a missle downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, yet 298 families are still without closure. In the US we’ve heard the slogan “too big to fail” when giving a pass to big banks, companies or their decision makers. When it is the powerful like Vladimir Putin and Russia, one wonders if they are just “too big to be held accountable?” Aviation lawyer Jerry Skinner hasn’t given up in holding those accountable for the downing of a commercial airliners over the Ukraine as he continues to accumulate evidence that even the political in his own country have denied or try to ignore.
When aviation lawyer Jerry Skinner stopped by his suburban Cincinnati office last Christmas, he found the door ajar and the interior trashed. The files for his latest lawsuit, on behalf of victims of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 crash, were missing.
“They didn’t take anything else but they turned the rest of the office inside out,” he remembered. “The police couldn’t say who did it – whoever came into the office was careful.”
Thirty days earlier, the white-bearded, friendly-faced lawyer had issued a threat. Weighing up all the available photographic, video and witness evidence, he decided that the missile that blew the passenger jet apart mid-air, killing all 298 people on board, must have been a Russian one. And that it had been fired from rebel-held eastern Ukraine by soldiers ultimately under the command of President Vladimir Putin.
MORE: MH17 anniversary: Meet the man suing Vladimir Putin, who now fears for his life
Posted By RichC on July 17, 2016
After buzzing down to Florida last week to show the condo in Delray Beach, I spent a couple days “hurricane prepping” Encore for the tropical weather likely to show up in a month or so (could happen any day now). My good friend Mark gave me a “sweaty” hand in getting the sails stowed away in the storage unit. It is so much easier with him helping … and they are folded much better than one person along can do (BTW, Encore’s oceans sails are much heavier than most other boats her size).
With the temperature closing in on 100 degrees and sunny, just hanging out on the dock or the boat is exhausting. Those who live in Florida say that this summer has been much hotter than previous years and there has been no relief. I can vouch for it being seriously HOT. I ended up rigging up my ShadeTree awning for the couple of days I was there and it helps. Unfortunately the fiberglass poles and bungee straps have seen better day — add some replacement to my list of things to do. The above photo is an iPhone panoramic looking aft from the center cockpit.
