Finally a game where I can drive that car!

Source: http://www.forzaclans.com

He calls it his “cluster on 4 wheels” – because obviously there is some processing “horse-power” in this machine

May he always have a safe ride!

Source 1: http://blog.ahzf.de/index.php/2009/09/21/mein-cluster-hat-vier-rader/

We almost emptied a complete fuel tank on about than 350 km of road today – which means we had that much fun. Maybe when we buy one in the future it should have a bit more horsepower.

We even made some pictures:

thanks to our dealership: BMW Autohaus Poerlitz

First the GPS Logging tool:

It’s freeware, written in .NET and worked out of the box with my bluetooth gps. It’s called “GPS Cycle Computer” and has a lot of cool features like Google-Earth KML export, the obligatory GPX support and a great several display modes.

The GPS Logger exports an .GPX file which then is imported into the Analyzer called “GPS-Track-Analyse.NET”. This tool – obviously designed to analyze hiking – allows you to view the data in different ways, edit waypoints and export it to several other formats.

Source 1: http://www.gps-freeware.de/Vorschau.aspx
Source 2: the previous GPS Tracker Tool I used
Source 3: the new Windows Mobile GPS Logger tool

average speed: 169,96 km/h
top speed: 217 km/h
duration: 00:10:35
track length: 29,91 km

In this nearly 54 hours we travelled 3252 km which translates to 2020 miles. With about 8,7 l of gas per 100 km (which translates to about 34 mpg) it’s less than I expected.

At around 2100 we had the first full-throttle run getting us up to about 230 km/h followed by the first car wash session and the first replacement windshield…(narf!)

Two weeks ago we had the chance to take the car out for a great drive through the “Franconian Switzerland” (I still like “Fränkische Schweiz” better). The only thing I write about this weekend is: great fun!

The replacement will be installed next wednesday…

Das Auto meiner Frau ist da noch viel schlimmer dran gewesen – als Baujahr 1997 und mit dem Geburtsfehler “Opel” ist es ein Wunder dass es überhaupt bis ins Jahr 2008 durchgehalten hat. Nicht ohne Blessuren: die gesamte Elektrik tut mehr oder weniger das was sie will, die Rad lager hören sich an als wären ein paar Stahlkugeln in einer Waschmaschine unterwegs und die Lenkung an sich zieht so böse nach rechts dass man sozusagen die ganze Zeit nach Links lenken muss um geradeaus zu fahren. Und da ist dieser Geburtsfehler: Die Hütte rostet dass man glaubt das wäre ein Hochseeschiff ohne Lackierung. Nun ja.

Den Opel haben wir schon frühzeitig in 2008 dem Gebrauchtwagenmarkt zugeführt und auch – wie ich finde (meine Frau ist da etwas anderer Meinung) – reichlich Geld dafür bekommen. Für den SEAT Arosa haben wir uns ein anderes, endgültigeres Schicksal ausgedacht:

Im November 2008 klapperten wir die verschiedenen Autohändler in der Umgebung ab – all die üblichen Verdächtigen mussten befragt, begutachtet, bewertet und letztlich ausgewählt werden. Prinzipiell stellte sich die Frage: Ein Japaner oder ein deutsches Fabrikat?

Wir hatten einen Honda Civic im Auge – aber aufgrund glanzvoller Ignoranz der Händler und dem doch extrem schlechten Preis-Leistungsverhältnis haben wir uns schon frühzeitig entschieden: ein deutsches Auto soll es sein. Genauer gesagt ein BMW.

Die ersten Erfahrungen mit dem ortsansässigen BMW Händler haben dann auch recht schnell Herz und Brieftasche geöffnet. Schon nach dem ersten Besuch war die Probefahrt klar gemacht – wir hatten uns nämlich recht schnell auf einen “Einser” eingeschossen. Den gab es in der richtigen Größe und viel wichtiger: Mit der gewünschten Gadget-Dichte.

Am 08.11.2008 ging es also mit einem blauen 3 türigem 1er in den Thüringer Wald – gerade noch rechtzeitig vorm ersten großen Schnee. Wir haben natürlich die Gelegenheit für ein paar Fotos genutzt:

Die Kaufentscheidung war getroffen – nun ging es an die Planung. Der BMW Konfigurator ist da ein ganz nettes Spielzeug, wenngleich ich mir da noch die ein oder andere Verbesserung gewünscht hätte. Über Weihnachten und im Januar wurde das Wunschauto konfiguriert und dann am 13. Januar mit der Hoffnung dass der Winter ein Herz mit uns haben möge gleich mit Sommerreifen auf den baldmöglichsten Termin bestellt. Abholen wollten wir das Auto nicht beim Händler sondern direkt in München in der BMW Welt.

Den Termin bekamen wir ein paar Tage später vom immer noch sehr zuvorkommenden, engagierten und überaus netten Händler – ja das ist nicht übertrieben, der Mann ist auf jede unserer Fragen eingegangen und hat sich speziell beim Rätsel-Thema “iPod-Integration” extra nochmal kundig gemacht.

Nun ging die wirklich anstrengende Phase des Projekts “BMW kaufen” los: das Warten.

Da trudelten dann im Wochen-Rhythmus die Bestätigungen, die finalen Rechnungen und so wichtige Dinge wie Kennzeichen-Tragetaschen und Informationsmaterial zur Abholung ein. Alles in allem hat das die Vorfreude natürlich enorm gesteigert.

Am 12. März war es dann soweit. Unser BMW war gebaut, poliert und fertig zur Abholung. Wir sind an dem Tag extra früh aus dem Bett da die Abholung selbst auf 14:20 Uhr angesetzt war. Das ist natürlich reichlich spät wenn man hinterher noch eine BMW Stammwerksführung machen will. Deshalb haben wir die Werksführung vor die Auslieferung gezogen und mussten so recht früh (4 Uhr, urks!) raus und nach München. Wir waren rechtzeitig da und natürlich war wie erwartet ein wirklich schöner Tag für uns vorbereitet worden. Der Empfang, die Werksführung, die BMW Welt selbst, die Präsentation unseres Autos – da fällt einem nur ein “WOW!” ein.

die Abholer-Premium-Lounge

die “BMW Welt”

die Treppe für die Abholenden – da geht man
gaaaaaanz langsam runter

Auf den Bildern ist ja auch diese Treppe zu sehen – da geht man nach dem Fahrzeug-Briefing – also dem Teil wo dem Abholer sein neues Auto in Theorie und Simulations-Praxis erklärt wird – gaaaanz gaaaanz langsam hinunter. Um dann direkt vor seinem Neuwagen zu stehen. Und ganz ehrlich, bei der ganzen Show ist das schon ein erinnerungswürdiger Moment wenn das Auto dann endlich vor einem auftaucht.

Außen weiß und innen ganz in schwarz.

Endlich war das Warten vorbei! Wir haben uns dann direkt auf die Sommer-Socken gemacht. Die Fahrt versprach nämlich spannend, oder doch zumindest interessant zu werden: Schneeregen und Nebel war angesagt. Das kam dann auch, war aber nicht die Spur eines Problems – schön langsam und sicher sind wir nach einem ewig langen Tag wieder zuhause angekommen. Die Nacht war dann aber auch nicht besonders lang – denn nur zwei Tage später sind wir umgezogen. Ja da ist sozusagen die “Coole Sache Nummer 2”. Den Bericht gibts dann aber in einem anderen Artikel.

Source: http://hackedgadgets.com/2008/09/29/lego-v8-engine/
Source 2: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ut5ND3agI

“Carl Edwards did everything he could Sunday, including purposely bouncing off the concrete wall at Kansas Speedway, but it wasn’t quite enough to beat two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson.”

“I planned on hitting the wall, but I didn’t plan on the wall slowing me down that much,” Edwards said. “In video games, you can just run into the wall and run it wide open. That’s what I did, but it didn’t quite work out the same as the video game.”

Source: http://hamptonroads.com/2008/09/johnson-wins-edwards-hits-wall-purpose

Source: makezine

Source: http://zedomax.com/blog/2008/09/10/non-circular-gears/

“Screeching tires, smouldering heads and impressive technical innovations – welcome to the Formula Student Germany 2008!
Join the Brunel Race at our stand. As a virtual race driver you’ll be able to win the Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring. The fastest driver gets the chance to win 2 tickets for the Formula 1 Event at Nürburgring 2009.”

If you don’t know what Formula Student is…you may want to read this:

“Students build a single seat formula racecar with which they can compete against teams from all over the world. The competition is not won solely by the team with the fastest car, but rather by the team with the best overall package of construction, performance, and financial and sales planning.

Formula Student challenges the team members to go the extra step in their education by incorporating into it intensive experience in building and manufacturing as well as considering the economic aspects of the automotive industry. Teams take on the assumption that they are a manufacturer developing a prototype to be evaluated for production. The target audience is the non-professional Weekend-Racer, for which the racecar must show very good driving characteristics such as acceleration, braking and handling. It should be offered at a very reasonable cost and be reliable and dependable. Additionally, the car’’s market value increases through other factors such as aesthetics, comfort and the use of readily available, standard purchase components.

The challenge the teams face is to compose a complete package consisting of a well constructed racecar and a sales plan that best matches these given criteria. The decision is made by a jury of experts from the motorsport, automotive and supplier industries. The jury will judge every team’s car and sales plan based on construction, cost planning and sales presentation. The rest of the judging will be done out on the track, where the students demonstrate in a number of performance tests how well their self-built racecars fare in their true environment.”

Starting this friday there will be a livestream available (Flash and Windows Media). Great stuff!

Source 1: Livestream
Source 2: http://formulastudent.tv/
Source 3: http://www.formulastudent.de

built from a Lamborghini Diablo GT chair…

“Race Chairs brand office furniture is the perfect collection for the performance minded or motorsports obsessed individual. Our offerings are unique conversation pieces that give a subtle yet distinctive high tech atmosphere to any room.

Our chairs are made from the authentic high performance seats from exotic racecars such as Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, and Porsche. From our unique connection to the motorsports world, we are able to acquire a unique and everchanging inventory. Our Carbonfiber desks are an industry first and our accessories collection and one-off motorsports memorabilia pieces truly complete the decor while acting as functional pieces in the room.”

It’s not cheap but it has style

Source: http://www.racechairs.com/default.asp

“Navteq fährt mit speziell ausgerüsteten Fahrzeugen rund 7,5 Mio. Kilometer ab, und das Jahr für Jahr. Denn auch wenn auf der Verpackung steht: 7200 neue Kilometer, dann bedeutet das nicht, dass der “Rest” nicht auch unter die Räder genommen wurde. Und das lohnt sich immer: Hier steht mal ein neues Schild, da ist eine neue Einmündung und dort wurde vielleicht die Straßenführung geändert.”

Source: http://www.ksmichel.de/?p=289

“Announced this morning by TVR Managing Director, David Oxley, at an exclusive preview event held at the new TVR development works in Lancashire, England – TVR Production has resumed!

Upon the momentous occasion, which included invited members of the TVR Car Club, TVR staff presented the TVR Sagaris model year 2008. Exterior design has remained the same except for new 5 spoke wheels, while the interior receives a new center console with satellite navigation.

As promised back in 2006 by TVR owner, Nikolai Smolenski said “My intention is to expand the sales and distribution of TVR cars throughout Europe, the rest of the world and USA markets is a key part of the business strategy of the company.” Built as a left hand drive model, the 2008 Sagaris confirms it will be exported internationally.

Preliminary pricing puts the 2008 TVR Sagaris just below 85.000 Euros.”

So now the only thing I need is the money to buy one of these beasts… I’ll have one in black or white

the re-designed interior included satnav…touchscreen…

…and re-designed exhausts… I actually liked the side-exausts better…

the new bonnet … and the gorgeous speed six…*raaawwr*

Source 1: http://www.worldcarfans.com/9080710.012/page1/tvr-production-restarts—2008-sagaris-presented
Source 2: http://www.tvr-car-club.co.uk/tvrpreviewevent.asp

Source 1: www.forzaclans.com
Source 2: http://www.ifcaracing.com/

Source: Downloadlink

You may ask what “Formula Student” is…:

“Students build a single seat formula racecar with which they can compete against teams from all over the world. The competition is not won solely by the team with the fastest car, but rather by the team with the best overall package of construction, performance, and financial and sales planning.

Formula Student challenges the team members to go the extra step in their education by incorporating into it intensive experience in building and manufacturing as well as considering the economic aspects of the automotive industry. Teams take on the assumption that they are a manufacturer developing a prototype to be evaluated for production. The target audience is the non-professional Weekend-Racer, for which the racecar must show very good driving characteristics such as acceleration, braking and handling. It should be offered at a very reasonable cost and be reliable and dependable. Additionally, the car’’s market value increases through other factors such as aesthetics, comfort and the use of readily available, standard purchase components.

The challenge the teams face is to compose a complete package consisting of a well constructed racecar and a sales plan that best matches these given criteria. The decision is made by a jury of experts from the motorsport, automotive and supplier industries. The jury will judge every team’s car and sales plan based on construction, cost planning and sales presentation. The rest of the judging will be done out on the track, where the students demonstrate in a number of performance tests how well their self-built racecars fare in their true environment.”

Overview map of the event

As soon as the Live-Streams are available I will keep you updated…

Source 1: http://www.formulastudent.de

“Ze Germans …are coming! We’re taking on the Mongol Rally 2007. 13.000 kilometers, 5 mountain ranges, 2 deserts, some of the worst roads in the world and all this in car most people wouldn’t trust to get them to the local shops.”

And as of today they are on the road doing the rally:

“If you read this after about 8am, then we are on the road and on our way to London. Thanks to Mirko, all our SMS Updates will also be posted here, so stay tuned! And for God’s sake, wish us luck!”

Source 1: http://www.mongolrally.de/
Source 2: http://mongolrally.theadventurists.com/

Painted from scratch just with the original game as a guideline. I’ll put some of these up in the auction house soon. So keep an eye out for them… Any sort of comment is appreciated.

This is the Forza Motorsport 2 Nürburgring:

(Forza Motorsport 2)

… remember when I had the exact same location pictured before in Project Gotham Racing 3:

(Project Gotham Racing 3)

“The researchers first questioned 198 men and women. Those who played the games most often were more likely to report engaging in aggressive and risky driving and getting in auto accidents. Those who played these games less often reported driving more cautiously, the researchers said.”

What’s the problem with you guys? I did play almost every racing simulation that came out the last 10 years and I did not get any speeding tickets or traffic ticket at all…. What’s the link? It’s just like it is with shooters: Just the fact that I play them doesn’t make me a real-life killer.

Source: Reuters

]]> http://www.schrankmonster.de/2007/03/08/hmmm-force-feedback/feed/ 0 http://www.schrankmonster.de/2006/11/22/its-my-360s-birthday-and-i-bought-her-a-present/ http://www.schrankmonster.de/2006/11/22/its-my-360s-birthday-and-i-bought-her-a-present/#comments Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:45:38 +0000 bietiekay http://www.schrankmonster.de/2006/11/22/itsMy360sBirthdayAndIBoughtHerAPresent.aspx It’s exactly one year since the XBOX 360 launched and I got mine from amazon. And since it’s birthday-party time, I bought another accessory:

8 kilograms of pure joy and racing fun. It’s the “XBOX 360 Wireless Racing Wheel“.

I just had time to drive for about 15 minutes with the wheel and all I can say is: PERFECT!. It’s one of the best wheels I’ve ever used and the force feedback is the best I ever had on a console and on PC. Currently only Project Gotham Racing 3 (comes with the wheel) and the upcoming Forza 2 support the wheel (…and one or two other games that don’t count), but well: Forza 2 and GTR (should also support the wheel, not announced yet) will be my favourite games in 2007…

If you’re playing racing games on the 360, I encourage you to get one of those wheels!!

Source: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/x/xbox360wirelessracingwheel/

“At locations that are particularly subject to accidents, speed cameras are erected specifically to catch speed offenders, to call them to account, and thereby to teach them a lesson. This should also reduce the number of accidents.

We are of the opinion that there is also another way to reduce the number of accidents.

With the help of our database, we hope to achieve the following for our users:

• to warn them in good time about high accident area
• that they check their speed and adjust it if necessary
• that they can fully focus their concentration on what is happening in the traffic

The goal of our project is not to promote “racing”! “

Source: http://www.scdb.info/en/

The trip to Munich normally takes me 3,5 hours – this day it took me more than 7 hours. Congestion is the word of choice here. Damn was that a bad trip. And back home it took nearly as long. I got into almost every congestion that was reported by the radio/TMC.

The fact that I was on the road for more than 13 hours and that the meeting took 1,5 hours… the next time I’ll be flying… Take-Off at 0700, Meeting at 0900, Take-Off at 1100 and back home for dinner.

Oh…to say something good about the Volkswagen: It wasn’t too heavy and the 2 liter 4 cylinder TDI was quite lively. The rest of the car is just extremly bad. The whole thing is badly build. Everything queeks and rattles all the time whilst driving. The gearbox is okay, but the clutch…. The suspension was the worst I’ve seen on a car since the plate spring. Every once in a while a bump showed up the car instantly started to nod. … Oh I could talk for hours. This car needs a better build quality and it surely needs more personality. The Golf is just a pricey bad car, period. Here’s some math:

VW Golf 2.0 TDI: € 21.873,00
Honda Civic 2,2i-TDCi: € 21.430,00
Ford Focus 2.0-TDCi: € 22.290,00

I would rather drive the Civic than the Golf…

Okay, I knew that Live for Speed seriously rocks, but this guy has a great racing sim setup…

Gamers rejoice! Today there were some really great updates in the XBOX 360 queue. The most interesting one is the update for Project Gotham Racing 3 – one of the launch titles of the 360. You finally can export the pictures you took in “Photo Mode” to your computer. Just select the picture and send it to your “Your Photos”-Webpage and grab them from there.

I straight went onto the track with the Sagaris to take some test pictures:

yes, HDR…

yes, panoramic view…

I just can say: WOW! That’s what I was looking for when I used the “Photo Mode” over half a year ago for the first time…Oh…I forgot to mention that they are also doing a competition…if you want to take part…here’s the info you need.

Source 1: http://projectgothamracing3.com/photos/PhotoGallery
Source 2: http://www.bizarreonline.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=216755

They make great looking powerful sports cars and I hope one day one will be mine They are quite affordable compared to other supercars – for example you can get a brand new TVR Sagaris (4l V6) for 80k EURO…a pre owned 2004 Cerbera (4.5l V8) comes for about 48k EURO…did I mention they do not come below 380 bhp and weigh as much as two packs of chewing gum? (I’ll have to pay royalties to Jeremy Clarkson for that…damn!).

The fact is that the Cerbera has gone out of official production in 2004. But now TVR is auctioning the last made Cerbera on the Internet:

Yes, you can get that brand new, pepper white, 420 bhp supercar…just sign up and bid…well if you have the money (which I don’t)…

Beside the Cerbera I fell in love with the Sagaris…look how gorgeous it is:

raaawwrrr!!

I just found the sagaris video:

If you want to buy me one…contact me

Source 1: http://www.thelastcerbera.com/
Source 2: http://www.tvr.co.uk/overview_sagaris.php

I have to admint that when I first drove the Warthog in HALO 1 my first thought was “It’s a french car! The steering is so indirect and tipsy like in every french car I drove to this point.”

And who would have thought that I was right? (well beside of moi) It’s a PEUGEOT! It’s a concept car and therefore it’s worth a lot of money…though it lacks the turret on the back…

Source: Warthog Testdrive

Hurray!

“This week on Top Gear, the show got a thrilling new look, and so did we. Plus, the boys made a people carrier into an exciting convertible, James enjoyed a new Honda, Jeremy enjoyed a Swedish supercar, and Richard didn’t enjoy a Micra. At all.”

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/

Every year again the “race” begins. Well it’s not a race per se – but a rally. This year the gumballers will start at sunday morning in London and arrive 8 days later in LA.

The difference this year: All of them are guided by a Windows Mobile powered device with ALKs CoPilot software. (ALK is one of the sponsors)

dreammode… someday… /dreammode

Source: http://www.gumball3000.com/

Three double upgrade vouchers…yeah! Ride on!

It seems that they want to thank me for my comments I made on their cars and service.

Source: http://www.sixt.de

Since my GPS logging tool is not working at the moment I just made a picture of the timer that comes with BMWs iDrive. So it’s 9 Minutes 25 seconds for the complete racetrack…very nice.

we are on the road again on our way to CeBIT / Hannover… see you there!

…see you on the other side…

Source: http://www.vwfeatures.com/

So this magazine has a test track where all the cars have to do a power lap to set a time.

And that’s exactly what I want to do: I want to set a time and compete with others on this track. Wouldn’t it be great? Even after Jeremy Clarksons Gran Turismo experiment where JC exercised on a PS2 and raced the real track afterwards…

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear

I did not write for over a week now – I simply had no time to write – but now I want to give you a short update on what happened the last days:

2. December: the 360 arrives. I had only some time to unpack and testdrive PGR3 – in fact it’s what was promised – the next generation gaming console. (please make a firmware update so that the DVD drive is more quiet).

yes, there’s an apple keyboard attached to the 360.

To raise the pain-bar the desperatly needed XBOX VGA cable is not available anywhere around. I actually have to wait till it’s available again. Until then I am using the 360 via PAL-60 – which is – oh well …

There are some nice and some bad things to say about the 360 – one thing I just found out and impressed me: when you want to type – let’s say in XBOX live – you might want to use the on-screen keyboard. But when you attach a commonly used USB keyboard to the 360 – you can use it for the typing job … I wasn’t expecting that.

late last week I attended the 3rd “Speakers Acting” Training held by Vision Voices Executives Alexandra Schwarze and Martin Marx. As you can imagine it was a fantastic and enriching experience.

And the this weekend it finally happened: SIXT gave me my the first V6 – a Mercedes Benz ML320 – what a … hell of a car.

hmm… a SUV at >220 km/h… hrhr eat this mother nature!

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you what I did with the addictive ML – We took a trip to Berlin to meet with the guys of the Chaos Computer Club Berlin who are organising the 22th Chaos Communication Congress. As things work out we will be in Berlin at 25th of december with 10 people – recording and streaming the whole congress for you. Working closely together with the guys from congress-tv, congress-streaming… I can only cross fingers and hope that everything is going to happen as planned and discussed.

Source 1: http://www.visionvoice.de
Source 2: http://www.ccc.de
Source 3: http://www.ccc.de/congress/2005

average speed: 193,373239 km/h
top speed: 234 km/h
duration: 00:09:38
track length: 30,51 km

It’s my favourite car. And Sixt was so kind to offer me a “free ride”… this thing is awesome. Finally I got to drive one with compressor. Mercedes listen! I want one! Now!

average speed: 175,7376 km/h
top speed: 222 km/h
duration: 00:10:25
track length: 30,51 km

hmm… too much traffic ;-(

GPS-Log: GPS20051108173926-627.zip (32,82 KB)

For the launch day (yesterday!)…Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and Biztalk 2006 launched…yeah!…So I got a Audi A4 for that trip… nice car…very nice car

more this evening…